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$ * 


BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


By Anna Hamlin JVeikel 


Betty Baird 

Betty Baird’s Ventures 

Betty Baird’s Golden Year 






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so IT WAS NOW, IN THIS SUMMER’S DAY, IN THIS OLD 
SOUTHERN GARDEN — Frontispiece. See Page 304 


THE BETTY BAIRD SERIES 


BETTY BAIRD’S 

GOLDEN YEAR 


ANNA HAMLIN WEIKEL 

.1 

AUTHOR OF “BETTY BAIRD,” “BETTY BAIRD'S VENTURES” 
ETC. 

\ 

A. 

Illustrated by 
Ethel Pennewill Brown 


BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 






Copyright, iQOg, 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 
All rights reserved 

Published September, 1909 


CI.A 

SEP 28 1909 


O 


V 


THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 


Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Coming Events Cast their Shadows before i 

II. Many a True Word Spoken in Jest . , 9 

III. The Picnic on Paulding’s Point ... 26 

IV. The Commonplace Book 45 

V. Betty and the Webbies 51 

VI. Betty’s Golden Minute 61 

VII. '‘Nods AND Becks, and Wreathed Smiles” 71 

VIII. The May-Day Games 79 

IX. Just as Lois had Said ! 89 

X. Minturne Manor 98 

XI. Betty Meets Young Mr, Minturne . . 1 1 1 

XII. A Gay Luncheon in the Little Shop . . 125 

XIII. The Fire 134 

XIV. Miss Jane Arrives 144 

XV. The Twine Wash-rag 156 

XVI. Betty Organizes a City History Club . 170 

XVII. Miss Snell 189 

XVIII. Lois’s Engagement 198 

XIX. The Goods and the Pattern .... 205 

XX. Laurence Minturne’s Stormy Row . . , 213 

XXL Mrs. LeLeche has her Say 227 


vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXII. The City History Club Visits New York 235 

XXIII. Christmas Eve 254 

XXIV. Miss Snell’s Visit 267 

XXV. This Way for Maryland ! 276 

XXVI. The Gypsies 285 

XXVII. Lois’s Wedding 299 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


So it was now, in this summer’s day, in this 
old southern garden 

Like a lovely rainbow they formed in front 

of Lois 

“ Why, I thought you was a ghost ! ” she 

exclaimed 

The group greeted Minturne with laughter, 
as he came slowly down the stairs . 


Frontispiece 
Page 8o 

« 139 

« 219 



Betty Hairdos Golden Tear 



I 

COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS 
BEFORE 

B etty was quiet as a dormouse. She 
had drawn the old chintz-covered sofa 
to the window at the back of the big 
hall and, perched on its edge, had not lifted 
her eyes for an hour from the folio of engrav- 
ings slanted on the sill. Gradually, however, 
she realized that the ancient Scottish castles 
were growing dim, so, breathing a sigh of re- 
laxation, she clasped her hands behind her 
head and fell to dreaming about the strange 
legends she had been reading. 

For a long time Betty looked out into the 
quiet garden. A large snowball bush grew 
near the window, and its blossoms were be- 
ginning to nod in the freshening breeze. 


2 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


“You dear little faces!” said Betty, sud- 
denly. She leaned forward and patted the soft 
balls. In the witching twilight they seemed 
like shy but curious children peeping in at her 
through the open window. 

“Why, Cousin Betty, are n’t you trying your 
eyes?” came a small shocked voice. 

“You, Wise One!” Then Betty, disen- 
tangled from her dreams, sat upright, and, 
smoothing down her bright rumpled hair, was 
prepared for those polite practicalities which 
were always uppermost in the mind of nine- 
year-old Edwyna. 

The little cousin ran over to Betty and, 
throwing herself down by her side, snuggled 
up close to her. 

“Edwyna, I have just returned from Scot- 
land!” Betty announced gravely, tilting the 
tiny head backwards and kissing both cherry- 
red cheeks. 

“Did you have a pleasant trip. Cousin 
Betty?” asked the child, in her most affable 
make-believe tone. 

“Such a time!” breathed Betty, giving 
Edwyna a hug. “I have found a perfectly 
fascinating legend in this book, all about the 


COMING EVENTS 


3 

Bairds and their castle. See ! ” she went on, 
pointing out the engraving of the Baird castle. 
“Don’t you remember that only last week I 
told you about Thomas the Rhymer, who 
married the Queen of the Fairies and went 
with her to Fairyland? And that was hun- 
dreds and hundreds of years ago! You re- 
member the ballad says : — 

O they rade on and farther on, 

And they waded through rivers aboon the knee. 

And they saw neither sun nor moon. 

But they heard the roaring o* the sea. 

“ ‘ It was mirk mirk night, and there was nae stern light. 
And they waded through red blude aboon the knee. 

For a’ the blude that ’s shed on earth, 

Rins through the springs o* that countrie.’*’ 

Edwyna bounced up and down on the sofa 
and hugged herself delightedly at the sanguin- 
ary description, and Betty continued: 

“He stayed there seven years and learned 
soothsaying. Then he came back and lived 
on the Tweed, and made a great many proph- 
ecies, among them this one about the Bairds, 
about Us, The Bairds! Listen!” 

Betty bent close to the book and read 
impressively: 


4 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

‘‘ ‘As long as the Bairds live in the castle of 
Auchmeddon, so long will the eagles inhabit 
the crags thereof!’ What do you think of 
that, Edwyna ? ” 

Edwyna’s black eyes gleamed and she 
gripped Betty’s hands. Satisfied that she had 
fallen into the spirit of the tradition, Betty 
continued to read: 

“ ‘Thrice did the eagles flee the castle when 
it fell into alien hands, and thrice did they 
return to their ancient aeries when the name 
of Baird and the blood of the Bairds came 
back at last to their own 1’ Oh, Edwyna, can 
you guess why those eagles did this ? ” 

Edwyna shook her head thoughtfully, though 
her eyes did not leave Betty’s face for an 
instant. 

“The old chronicler doesn’t say nor even 
seem to wonder why,” pondered Betty, turn- 
ing again to the open volume. But the letters 
were now blurred in the twilight. “What 
was the bond between the Bairds and the 
eagles ? Can’t you see the eagles perched up 
there on their rocks, looking down on those 
old square towers of the castle ? And, oh, — ” 
Betty’s sweet voice thrilled with sympathy, 


COMING EVENTS 


5 


and her words were unconsciously tinged 
with the old chronicler’s style, — “can’t you 
see them soaring securely round and round 
the turrets ? Suddenly all is changed ! Their 
instinct tells them that the race they love has 
gone from its ancient home. Do they follow ? 
Or do they become wanderers, too homesick 
to live without the Bairds ? ” 

“I think they follow the Bairds,” said 
Edwyna, under her breath. 

“So do I ! Just think of their loyalty, their 
despairing leave-taking, their joyful home- 
coming ! ” 

“Perhaps, Cousin Betty, once upon a time 
a Baird saved an eagle’s life, and that ’s why 
they love them.” 

“Good! That may be the very reason!” 
exclaimed Betty. “And because of that, they 
are the guardians of the family. Or they may 
be the transmigrated souls of proud chief- 
tains, returned in this form to guard their 
descendants.” 

“Are you going to buy the castle. Cousin 
Betty?” asked Edwyna, with flattering seri- 
ousness. 

“I ’m afraid I haven’t yet saved enough 


6 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


in my little iron home-missionary bank/’ an- 
swered Betty. She gave Edwyna’s lemon- 
colored hair-ribbon a tweak, then bent to one 
side to see the effect. ‘‘It would certainly 
be missionary work to buy a home for those 
poor eagles,” she added, smiling to herself at 
Edwyna’s rapt face. 

They were silent for a few moments, Betty 
thinking of the legend, while Edwyna was 
enchanted with the long new word she had 
heard Betty use. 

The venerable Frisian clock on the wall, 
with an abrupt falling of its heavy brass 
weight, struck six. 

“Six!” Betty’s voice showed her surprise. 

“Cousin Betty, what was that word you 
used, something about ’grated ? ” Edwyna 
spoke hesitatingly, torn between her love for 
a sounding word and her fear of the customary 
bantering. 

“My polysyllabic cousin, that word was 
trans-mi-grat-ed,” syllabicated Betty, laugh- 
ingly, squeezing Edwyna’s hand at each 
hyphen. 

“ But what does trans-mi-grat-ed mean ? ” 
persisted Edwyna. 


COMING EVENTS 


7 


“You don’t mean to tell me that a big girl 
like you does n’t know what a little word like 
‘ transmigrated ’ means ? ” teased Betty. “ Why, 
it is n’t more than half as long as you are 
yourself.” 

“Please! Please^ Cousin Betty! It sounds 
like that word about birds going South in the 
fall.” 

“That ’s a fine beginning. But run to the 
dictionary, child.” 

“I don’t believe you know yourself,” pouted 
Edwyna, while Betty took this opportunity to 
close her book and hum cheerfully the opening 
bars of “Annie Laurie.” 

Edwyna soon caught her hand and inter- 
rupted in a whisper, because a whisper seemed 
more polite when interrupting: 

“I forgot to tell you that dinner would be 
ready exactly at six instead of half-past.” 

“Oh, then we must migrate to the dining- 
room at once ! ” cried Betty, springing up. 
“I ’ll help you look up that word this very 
evening. It ’s lucky this old clock ’s fast ! ” 

Singing and laughing, stumbling too, be- 
cause they would not look where they were 
walking, simply out of the irrationality of 


8 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


pure high spirits, they reached the dining- 
room and opened the door suddenly. Dazzled 
by their plunge into the brilliant light after the 
darkness of the hall, they covered up their 
eyes and clutched each other frantically, as 
they ran against some object on their heedless 
way. 

‘‘Oh, how dear it is!’’ ^Betty exclaimed, 
opening her eyes and taking in with a swift 
glance the fine damask, the thin silver, the 
fragile white and gold china, all handed down 
in her mother’s family. 


MANY A TRUE WORD SPOKEN IN JEST 


A' 


^RE we late, mother mine?” asked 
Betty, as Mrs. Baird came into the 
dining-room, sorting a handful of 
yellow flowers for the table. 

“No, child. Run up to the study and call 
your father before he ’s too much absorbed 
in his writing. We are having dinner early, 
so that he can attend a meeting at the manse. 
Now, Edwyna, dear, set the chairs around 
the table.” 

Betty flew up the stairs and soon reappeared 
with her father. They walked arm-in-arm 
down the spacious staircase into the room, 
a bit of dinner ceremony that the dignified 
clergyman always expected of his impulsive 
daughter. 

After the soup Mrs. Baird said: 

“Since we are pressed for time, Betty, you 
and Edwyna may help to bring in the dinner.” 


lo BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


‘‘Come, Edwyna, ‘ bound as to the tabor’s 
sound,’ ” Betty cried, and she whisked the 
child into the kitchen, almost upsetting jovial 
old Katie, the ancient cook, who seemed to 
have been handed down with the family silver 
from Mrs. Baird’s home, so many years had 
she and her mother served there. 

“You two chillun do beat de band,” she 
protested, grinning broadly. Then with the 
silver meat platter heaped with fried chicken 
held up firmly in both hands, she shuffled in. 
She nodded her red and yellow turbaned head 
approvingly, with a self-satisfied smile, as she 
glanced down at the savory dish. On her way 
to the kitchen she halted at the door to catch 
the Doctor’s look of approval. 

She had scarcely disappeared when Betty, 
bearing imitatively a glass dish of quivering 
cranberry jelly and another with a creamy 
cone of mashed potatoes, and Edwyna, with 
a platter of crisp brown corn pone, came in, 
and flanked the meat plate with their burdens. 
The min>ic serving was so true to the model 
that Mrs. Baird laughingly asked Betty if she 
was “never going to grow up.” Yet as she 
looked into the frank beautiful eyes that held 


MANY A TRUE WORD 


1 1 

the warmth and joy of springtime, her long- 
ing to keep her a child belied her pleasant 
chiding. 

“Never, I fear, Carissima,’^ acquiesced 
Betty, cheerfully. “I don’t feel any more 
equal now to being eighteen than I did at 
fourteen.” 

Immediately after grace, during which, it 
must be confessed, her large black eyes peeped 
hungrily at the chicken, Edwyna piped up, 
pointing to a bowl of daffodils in the centre 
of the table: 

“Dottie brought those flowers over. Uncle 
William.” 

“Dottie is very kind,” the Doctor said, 
halting his fork in mid-air as he looked care- 
fully at the flowers. “I think the Ellsworths 
always have the finest of everything in their 
garden.” 

“Craig’s scientific gardening is paying him 
at last,” said Betty, with pride in her boy 
friend’s achievements. “He’s been helping 
me on Saturdays, when home from Columbia, 
and next year we’ll have all the early earthy 
things we need right out of our own kitchen 
garden.” 


12 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


‘‘Aunt Helen, you don’t know what Cousin 
Betty is going to do now,” exulted Edwyna, 
with knowing eyes and a demure smile. 

Mrs. Baird smilingly shook her head. 

“Wait until dessert, little Edwyna,” she 
suggested, “then we shall have more time. I 
can hardly believe it is another venture.” 

Everybody laughed, Betty most of all. 
Nevertheless, down in their hearts, her par- 
ents appreciated very tenderly what Betty was 
trying to do. 

It was simply the old story. Doctor Baird, 
after twenty-five years in the ministry, had 
bought this small farm on Long Island to be 
near his work as one of the assistant secretaries 
of the Home Mission Board. The heavy mort- 
gage on it was held by a man who constantly 
threatened foreclosure if the interest was not 
paid on the very day it was due. 

These conditions had thrust upon Betty 
the problem of fitting herself to put her 
shoulder to the wheel, as a son might do, and 
help her father to lift the mortgage. She had 
no thought of a career. Doctor Baird be- 
longed to the old school, and it was painful 
to him to think of his daughter starting out 


MANY A TRUE WORD 


^3 

as a bread-winner. Y et his increasing ill-health 
and the inevitable superannuation were con- 
stantly before him, and it seemed wiser to 
allow Betty, while still young, to attempt to 
make herself independent. 

In the beginning her modest ventures had, 
it is true, failed one after another, but finally 
a way was opened. After a series of experi- 
ences, the most trying of which was her deposal 
by the rich Mr. Webbie from the village libra- 
rianship to make room for one of his distant 
relatives, Betty had found her niche in Miss 
Minturne’s Studio of Design, in New York. 
This position had been offered to her through 
the good offices of her old schoolmate, Mary 
Livingstone, who was a senior at ‘ The Pines ’ 
when Betty was a worshipping freshman there. 
Mary had married a Mr. King, and was now 
living on their large estate on the outskirts of 
Hobart, not far from Betty’s home. 

Miss Minturne was a woman of wealth and 
wide social influence and, withal, an original 
character who had determined to abandon 
dinners and receptions and to have a life work, 
as her brothers had. Being indefatigable her- 
self, her nervous energy kept everybody around 


14 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

her in a whirlwind of activity, yet her nature 
was so generous and inspiring that hard work 
in her company proved a delight. 

Betty found interior decoration thoroughly 
congenial. Not only was she fitted for it by 
rare judgment and discriminating taste, but 
also, during her three years at ‘ The Pines,’ she 
had been thrown much into the company of 
one of the teachers. Miss Greene, whose 
hobby was decoration. From her Betty, for- 
tunately, as it turned out, received a fairly 
comprehensive course in the art before she 
took up its detailed study. She thus began 
without that fumbling that comes from under- 
taking a work for which Nature has not cut 
one out. She did not go against the grain. 

Betty’s friends thought that since one client 
had accepted her plans for decorating a library 
— with, it is true. Miss Minturne’s advice and 
supervision — all would be plain sailing. But 
those who knew saw that it was only the start 
in the long toilsome race for success. There 
would not be a Dosworth Memorial Library 
every week or month. No. Week after week 
and month after month of studying, design- 
ing, planning, and writing out specifications 


MANY A TRUE WORD 


15 


for Miss Minturne, had to come in, with that 
deadly monotony of routine that characterizes 
all pursuits, and take all her time and thought 
before she received another commission. 

Fortunately her mind burnished with its 
own youth the long days, the inevitable dis- 
appointments, the prosaic details. She steadily 
refused to dwell on the dark side of her ex- 
periences, and gayly diffused her own hopeful 
views and created an atmosphere of cheerful- 
ness for herself and others. 

‘‘Dangerously near a grumble!’’ was a 
favorite expression of Betty’s when she found 
herself lingering on the failures. Then she 
would brush aside the subject and begin a 
merry story. She realized that the will to be 
cheerful and to make others cheerful grows 
with its exercise in just such apparent trifles 
as depressing or hopeful conversation. 

Presently Katie brought in the dessert, ice- 
cream moulded in the shape of a swan. The 
swan design was Edwyna’s special delight. 

“Please, I want the head. Aunt Helen,” 
she whispered confidentially. 

The dismemberment began, and Mrs. Baird 
turned to Betty. 


1 6 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


“Now, Betty, let us hear about Edwyna’s 
secret.” 

“She has a big bee in her bonnet this time. 
Aunt Helen,” said Edwyna, importantly, her 
eyes dancing with excitement. She delighted 
in Betty’s air-castles, and here was a real one 
in Scotland. 

“No, Wise One, not a bee, but an eagle 
in my Scotch bonnet,” replied Betty, with a 
great show of haughtiness and an elegant 
flourish of her dessert spoon. 

“What does this all mean, Elizabeth?” 
asked her father, looking questioningly from 
one to the other. 

“I Ve been studying that splendid book of 
engravings Mr. Anstice gave me at Christmas. 
It ’s all about Scottish castles, and oh, father, 
there ’s a Baird castle shown in it, and an 
enchanting legend about eagles that live in the 
crags near it only while the Bairds remain the 
owners of the castle.” Then Betty told about 
True Thomas’s prophecy. 

“They certainly are very particular eagles. 
Evidently they know when the society is good,” 
laughed Mrs. Baird. 

“The castle is for sale now,” Betty went on, 


MANY A TRUE WORD 


17 


with increasing animation. “How I wish we 
could buy it! I don’t believe it would cost 
much, for it is small and tumble-down, and 
anyhow, castles in Scotland are as common as 
thistles, bluebells, and heather,” she wound 
up merrily. 

“I should like very much to see the castle,” 
said Mrs. Baird, her fine motherly face show- 
ing her sympathy with Betty’s enthusiasm. 
“It ’s a charming prophecy, far more attract- 
ive than those commonly associated with old 
houses. It makes me think of St. Francis of 
Assisi and his saying, ‘My brother, the bird.’” 

“You’ve heard something about the Baird 
eagles, have n’t you, father ? ” asked Betty, 
turning hopefully to him. 

“I have given very little thought to gene- 
alogy, and I do not know much about my 
family, though I do remember hearing my 
grandmother say that seven tall Baird brothers 
came from Scotland two centuries or more 
ago and settled in different parts of this 
country.” 

“Oh, father, do remember more!” she 
pleaded, squeezing the hand with which he 
drummed thoughtfully on the table. “I ’d 


1 8 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


love so to be related to that prophecy — and 
to Sir Walter ! You know The Rhymer’s Glen 
is at Abbotsford. I’ve just been reading in 
Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter — which you 
made me begin — that he took an especial 
interest in families that had romantic legends 
connected with their name or house. He’d 
love this eagle prophecy. Why, of course he 
knew it ! He must have ! ” 

Betty’s mobile, winsome face showed the 
varying expressions of hero worship, of love 
of legendary romance, and clinging to her 
girlish dreams. She leaned forward, her light 
curling hair touching her father’s iron-gray 
head, her dark eyes searching his thin scholarly 
face with the feeling that she just had to make 
him remember his family’s Scottish home. 

“I regret, for your sake, my child, that I 
have not taken more interest in my pedigree. 
Now your mother could tell you all about the 
Bairds if she were in my place,” he wound 
up, smiling quizzically across the table at his 
wife. 

“Yes, I could,” averred Mrs. Baird, smiling 
back her appreciation of a perennial family 
joke. “You know they say Shintoism is 


MANY A TRUE WORD 


19 


ancestor worship. Well, then, my Shinto 
shrine is that big olive-wood box there on the 
mantlepiece, with my family’s history.” 

“That’s the very first thing I’ll grab if 
this house catches fire,” said Betty, enjoying 
her mother’s joke. 

“Are you sure you would n’t take the picture 
of your Scottish castle instead ? Your mother’s 
ancestors lived in mere houses, not castles,” 
said her father, slyly. 

Betty chuckled at the hit, but defended 
herself spiritedly. 

“Really, father, there’s no snobbery in 
wanting this little tiny romantic thing in my 
life. It makes — well, even commuting pleas- 
anter to have this to think about ! It’s only — 
I don’t know what, but I’d give a fortune — ” 

“Do you mean your pickles, your mar- 
malade, your — ” 

Betty’s slim right hand stopped Edwyna’s 
pretty, pert mouth. 

“To think of a genuine Grinling Gibbons 
cherub talking like that!” she lamented, 
though dimples persisted in coming to her 
cheeks to keep company with the mischievous 
twinkle in her bonny eyes. 


20 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


Edwyna indignantly jerked her head to one 
side. 

“Why not go over there and try your name 
on those eagles?” said her father, jestingly. 
“That would be a test as to whether or not you 
are the right brand of Baird.” 

“Now, father, you know what I mean. It 
would be living poetry to go over there and 
see that castle, buy it, hear the eagles scream, 
know they knew us, see their nests, the heather, 
the plaids, hear the hurdy-gurdy — ” 

“You can hear the hurdy-gurdy almost any 
day in New York,” laughed her father. 

Betty joined in the laugh. She could always 
enjoy a joke, even at her own expense. 

Then he continued: “We shall find it 
rather difficult to live poetry in this age. How- 
ever, I do believe in an avocation, even a 
hobby, to lighten our vocation, and since you 
are interested in this legend, Elizabeth, I will 
try to recall more about my people’s history. In 
our old homestead in Pennsylvania there were 
bald eagles in plenty among the rocks of the 
Alleghanies, and it was a neighborhood saying 
that they came there when the Bairds did, 
though what gave rise to the idea I cannot say.” 


MANY A TRUE WbRD 


21 


Betty almost jumped from her chair. 

“There! I felt it in my very bones that we 
were the eagle Bairds.’’ Her eyes sparkled at 
this confirmation of her hopes. 

“Perhaps there are no bald eagles in Scot- 
land,” suggested Mrs. Baird, smiling at Betty’s 
enthusiasm. 

“I remember the eagles very distinctly,” 
resumed the Doctor, now warmed up to the 
idea, as he looked into the depths of his cup. 
“My grandmother, and later my mother, 
were in the greatest terror lest the eagles 
should carry off the little children. Some day, 
Betty, I want to take you to my old home, 
though I fear there will be nothing left as it 
was except the old mountain and the trout 
brook.” 

The Doctor lost himself in pleasant mem- 
ories. 

“How long has it been since you were in 
your old home, father?” asked Betty, her 
tender heart and quick imagination touched 
by the longing in her father’s voice. It was 
this warm sympathy that made Betty seem 
every one’s contemporary. 

“I was your age, Elizabeth, when I left 


22 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


there ; and every year I ’ve planned to go back 
on a visit — that is, of late years.’’ 

“Why could n’t we go in your vacation in 
August?” suggested Betty, buoyantly. 

Doctor Baird looked up quickly, and his 
brown eyes lost their meditative look and 
brightened like his daughter’s, as if he, too, 
liked to “live poetry.” 

“Why, we could do that,” he admitted. 

Betty clapped her hands. “Good! We ’ll 
camp out and be as wild at Indians, and 
maybe,” she laughed, “we ’ll find our own 
true eagles.” 

“By the way,” said Mrs. Baird, after ex- 
pressing her gratification over this summer 
plan, “didn’t Lois write that her father was 
going to Scotland this summer? Perhaps he 
will find out something about your eagles.” 

“Oh, he would! Isn’t it too good to be 
true that Lois is coming so soon ! ” 

“Dear Lois; it ’s a long time since we ’ve 
seen her,” said Mrs. Baird, smiling tenderly 
at the thought of the young girl. 

“Little did I think,” said Betty, playing 
absently with her tiny coffee spoon, “when I 
was so homesick at ‘ The Pines,’ and every girl 


MANY A TRUE WORD 


23 


in the school seemed to hate me, and Lois 
Byrd came as my roommate, that for five 
years we should be like sisters ! ’’ 

“We old people are falling into reminis- 
cences,” laughed Doctor Baird, moving his 
chair so he could cross his knees, and turning 
to look out into the garden, where a new moon 
was making a faint glimmer through the Lom- 
bardy poplars. 

“Do I belong to the Bairds?” asked Ed- 
wyna, suddenly. She had not spoken for some 
time, having evidently retired from the con- 
versation to ponder the part she held in this 
prophecy. 

“Of course you do, Edwyna Baird Innes.” 

“Then if — if — ” Edwyna paused for a 
moment. Betty saw by the determined gleam 
in her eye that she had found an opportunity 
to air an addition to her famous vocabulary, 
and proceeded to egg her on. 

“Yes, Edwyna? You were about to make 
a remark?” she encouraged her, turning to 
her with elaborate courtesy. 

“If pro-pink-itty” — Edwyna sighed softly 
as the word came slowly from her strained 
lips — “would do, we might build a house 


24 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

near the eagles’ rocks, if the castle costs too 
much for us to buy.” 

“That sounds like a very practical idea,” 
said Doctor Baird, smiling, as he patted 
Edwyna’s small dark head and pushed his 
chair back from the table. 

“That won’t do, Edwyna, dear,” protested 
Betty, her eyes twinkling with fun. “You 
can’t cajole eagles with pro-pink-itty. It says, 
‘As long as the Bairds live in the castle,’ not 
near it.” 

“Cousin Betty will surely go over and be- 
come a trans-mi-grated eagle herself,” giggled 
Edwyna, in revenge. 

Betty gave a little shriek, which was cov- 
ered by the sound of their chairs as they rose 
from the table to go to the side porch, where 
it was their evening custom to stand a while 
and look out at the night. 

“Who knows,” said Mrs. Baird, cheerily, 
as she took Betty’s hand and placed it in her 
arm, while Edwyna hung to Betty’s arm with 
both hands, “who knows but that the eagles 
may come here when they leave their old 
home, if we are of the true fold ! ” 

“Well,” said Betty, laughing, “it would be 


MANY A TRUE WORD 


25 


a pretty long flight, even for the Baird eagles. 
But I shall be on the lookout from this time 
forward, henceforth, and forever ! My fate is 
linked with theirs!"’ 

‘‘‘Many a true word is spoken in jest,"” 
returned her mother, pleasantly, “but I am 
afraid I can’t see how you and your eagles are 
ever going to become acquainted.” 


Ill 

THE PICNIC ON Paulding’s point 

‘‘ T OIS is really here!” was Betty’s first 

I . thought that morning; the second, 
“How shall we celebrate?” 

She pulled aside the curtain. The breeze 
that came in was mild and filled with the odors 
of early spring. The sun was shining brightly 
on the bay. 

“A row ’s the thing!” 

So, after a brisk discussion, the girls decided 
to mark this red-letter day by rowing down to 
the inlet. They flew out to the boat-house right 
after breakfast, then down to the boat, laden 
with oars, cushions, oarlocks, wooden scoop, 
sponge, and a basket of luncheon. The boat, 
which had been put into the water only the 
day before, had leaked a good deal, but they 
went energetically to work with scoop and 
sponge, and soon had it dry as a bone. 

Lois dropped into her old seat in the 
stern, and Betty, standing up with an oar in 


THE PICNIC 


27 

her hand, pushed away from the little wharf. 
Then she sat down and, adjusting the oars 
in the locks, began to pull towards the inlet, 
rowing easily in time with their talk, for they 
had many months of separation to bridge 
over. 

Both girls were tall, slender, and graceful, 
but there the resemblance stopped. Lois had 
dark hair and a clear olive skin, while Betty’s 
light brown hair glinted like gold in the sun, 
and her cheeks were as delicately tinted as a 
rose leaf. 

They were unlike, too, in more than looks. 
Betty, buoyant, humorous, high-spirited, her 
feet steadily refusing to cross a bridge until 
they came to it, was always seeing the bright 
side of life. Lois, while usually light-hearted, 
was serious and inclined to be apprehensive. 
Both were loyal and true. 

Betty’s work was soon the topic of their 
conversation. 

‘‘Miss Minturne is not herself,” said Betty, 
thoughtfully, as she gently feathered her oars. 

“ Miss Minturne ! What can be the matter ? 
Is she ill?” asked Lois, anxiously. 

“No-0-0—” 


28 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


“Isn’t she the same to you? Is she — 
are n’t you — don’t you give — ” 

Lois stumbled along, then ended helplessly. 

Betty rested on her oars, with the dripping 
blades poised in the air, and laughed gayly at 
her friend’s anxiety. 

“You dear old Mentor, Guide, and Friend !” 
she mocked, bending to her oars and making 
the boat spin through the water. 

“Call me what you please, mentor or 
meddler, but it would be dreadful if you 
did n’t give — ” 

“It would be ‘dreadful,’ but it isn’t. If 
you will beat about the bush, I assure you that 
I do give ‘ perfect satisfaction’ to my employer.” 

“Betty, you are so hopeful!” said Lois, 
plaintively. 

“There it goes! I wonder why so many 
people say that to me with such disapproval. 
Why is it?” Betty demanded, looking a trifle 
nettled. 

“Well,” said Lois, half laughing, “I sup- 
pose it seems wiser to apprehensive people to 
be on the lookout for trouble, and optimistic 
people strike them as — as — shiftless. But 
I am frightened. Bet,” persisted Lois. “You 


THE PICNIC 


29 


had so much trouble with your ventures until 
you found your present place, then everything 
seemed so pleasant/’ 

“Everything is pleasant. Why, Lois, Miss 
Minturne and I just love each other, and we 
agree perfectly in our work,” answered Betty, 
in a tone that carried conviction. 

“You darling old Betty! I might have 
known better. But how is she different ? 
You are dreadfully unsatisfactory.” 

“ It ’s downright hard to say, even to you, 
Lois, that a woman I love and admire is — 
well, yes, snappy at times!” 

“ Snappy ! That ’s strange. She ’s always 
been so agreeable, even if she is a little eccen- 
tric. Excuse me for saying it.” 

“Why, Miss Minturne is only beautifully 
original, not eccentric. But lately she has 
been treating even Mr. Anstice terribly.” 

“Queer! I thought she and Mr. Anstice 
were such great friends.” 

“They always have been,” replied Betty, 
letting the boat drift and sinking her chin into 
her two palms. “I can’t understand it. 
Lately she ’s been acting as if he were her 
worst enemy.” 


30 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Lois looked at Betty as though trying to 
read in her eyes a solution of the problem that 
interested them both deeply, for Miss Minturne 
filled a large place in their hearts. Then a 
light broke over her face. 

“Why, Betty,” she exclaimed, “I have it! 
She ’s in love with Mr. Anstice!” 

“ In love 1 Miss Minturne 1 ! Mr. Anstice 111” 

“What a crescendo of surprise 1 He ’s been 
in love with her for a long time, you know 
that. Now, she ’s either in love with him or 
she ’s not in love with him. If she ’s in love 
with him — ” 

Betty clapped her hands over her ears and 
shook her head, laughing. 

“Lois, you make me dizzy with your logic 
and your ‘in loves.’ But how would that 
explain — ” 

“Her being snappy? Snappiness is one of 
the surest signs of love,” Lois declared, with 
immense sophistication. 

Betty again dropped her chin into the palms 
of her hands, and stared out towards the hori- 
zon, while Lois fell into an abstraction that 
seemed to hold disquietude. 

“It ’s certainly a great undertaking for a 


THE PICNIC 


31 


woman of her age,” at last said Lois, sagely, 
leaning forward and sponging up some water 
that had leaked into the boat. 

‘‘Yes, we young things could manage so 
much better,” teased Betty, resuming her 
oars. 

“I mean that she ’s happy now,” Lois ex- 
plained, “and they have entirely different 
temperaments, and it seems to me it would be 
better to let well enough alone.” 

“Miss Minturne is talking of taking a trip 
soon. I do believe that she ’s running away 
from herself. Maybe she is in love with him, 
but she ’s not satisfied,” said Betty,' eagerly, 
now wholly in sympathy with Lois’s surmise. 
“She finds herself weighing things practically, 
and that disappoints her. He ’s wild over her, 
and that pleases her, and she wants to be wild 
over him — oh !” 

The “ oh ! ” was thrown up like a break- 
water, to stop the impetuous flow of her words. 

“ Lois, it ’s wretched taste to be discussing 
this,” she finished. 

“Yes, especially when it ’s all guesswork. 
Yet—” 

“ I wish it was n’t such fun to discuss people 


32 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

and their affairs/’ broke in Betty, smiling 
ruefully. 

In her turn she now began to bail out the 
water, which was taking advantage of their 
inattention. Straightening up, her face flushed 
from the exertion, Betty waved the red wooden 
scoop enthusiastically around. 

‘‘ Is n’t it good, Lois ! Are n’t you glad to 
be back?” 

‘‘Couldn’t be gladder, Betty,” answered 
Lois. She glanced furtively at Betty’s bright 
sweet face as the fair head bobbed up and 
down while she mopped the bottom of the 
boat with the sponge. She knew Betty would 
read her thoughts if she looked her full in the 
face. And Lois’s thoughts were not happy. 
With Miss Minturne married what would be- 
come of the Studio of Design — and of Betty! 

“Now, Lois, I ’m going to give you a cor- 
rect imitation of a race against the world’s 
record. In four minutes, twenty-seven and 
two-fifths seconds, I ’ll land you at the old 
lighthouse on Paulding’s Point. Ever since 
we ’ve lived here we ’ve been wanting to see 
that old lighthouse, and now is our chance. 
Steer straight for it.” 


THE PICNIC 


33 


Settling herself on the thwart, getting her feet 
well braced against the stretcher, and taking a 
fresh grip on her oars, Betty bent to her work and 
made the boat cut through the water at a rate 
that would have done credit to a boy of her age. 

The bow soon grated on the sandy beach of 
the Point, and the girls scrambled out, Betty 
dragging the light grapnel anchor some dis- 
tance from the water, while Lois took the 
cushions and luncheon. 

Walking briskly towards the tiny white 
cottage at the foot of the towering granite 
lighthouse, Betty rapped timidly on the door, 
saying in an aside to Lois: 

“I wonder if they ’ll object to visitors.” 

The door was opened by an elderly, gray- 
haired, yet vigorous-looking woman, who sur- 
veyed them sharply. 

‘‘Please excuse us,” said Betty, “but would 
it be possible for us to see the lighthouse ? ” 

The woman glanced from one to the other, 
then, without answering, turned and went 
into a rear room. 

“Karl!” they heard her call out, evidently 
to some one upstairs. “A couple o’ gals want 
to see the light.” 


3 


34 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Heavy steps at once began to pound down 
the stairs, and presently Karl appeared, a tall, 
robust fellow, with the appearance and manner 
of a seafaring man. 

“This way,” was all he said, and led them 
to the light tower. Entering through a heavy 
oak door, they followed their guide up the 
narrow winding stone stairs, lit here and there 
by slits of windows in the wall. In the little 
room at the top of the tower they found an 
old, white-bearded, taciturn-looking man. 

“Dad, these young wimmin want to see 
the light,” Karl announced, and disappeared 
hastily. 

The father greeted them with a kindly 
though absent-minded glance, and proceeded 
to explain, with much pride, the workings of 
the light, the composition of the lenses, the 
steam siren for foggy weather, the hand-bell 
kept in reserve in case the siren should get 
out of order, and related many interesting 
incidents of his thirty years’ service there. 

Delighted with what they had seen and 
heard, the girls thanked the keeper heartily 
and made their way down the stairs and back 
towards their boat. 


THE PICNIC 


35 


Lois was some distance in advance, as 
Betty had stopped to examine a boating party 
that was rowing a little way out from the 
shore. 

“Betty, oh, Betty!’’ she heard Lois wail; 
and seeing her look of alarm, she flew to the 
boat, at which Lois was pointing in dismay. 

“ Why — why 1 ” Betty could get no farther, 
but dropped down on the sand and laughed 
until the tears rolled down her cheeks. Their 
boat, which had not been in the water long 
enough to close the cracks opened by the 
winter, had filled with water to within a few 
inches of the gunwales, and oars and scoop 
and sponge were floating around in it with the 
greatest abandon. 

“Lois, we’re marooned!” said Betty, 
cheerfully. 

“We can hardly ask the lighthouse people 
to help us, can we ? ” debated Lois. 

“Son Karl could help us. I ’m sure he ’d 
love to play knight-errant to ‘a couple o’ gals.’ 
Just think, Lois, after all we’ve read about 
knights, we must be rescued by Karl,— 

Karl, the Keeper of the Light, 

Karl, the hardy salt-sea Knight I ” 


36 BETTY BAIRD^S GOLDEN YEAR 

‘‘One man alone — ’’ began Lois. 

“That "s true/’ interrupted Betty. “Only 
one knight ! Too bad !” 

Lois could not resist the contagion of Betty’s 
light spirits, and she, too, soon took a humor- 
ous view of their situation. 

“And of course, Lois,” Betty pursued, 
“even one man would have no trouble at all 
in emptying our boat. Then, too, I know the 
Kings pass this point every day. And Jack 
has his launch in commission now, and it ’s 
likely he ’ll come by water instead of in his car 
on his way to see you. He can tow our boat. 
Dunny is pretty sure to be with him or — ” 

Betty jumped up, snatched a cushion, and 
tore down to the water’s edge. 

“What are you going to do?” Lois cried, 
and flew after her. 

“Wig-wag,” she called back, as she waved 
the cushion madly at a passing launch. But 
its occupants paid no attention. 

“I thought it was the Mortons’ boat,” said 
Betty, as she stepped hastily back out of reach 
of the waves from the launch, which began to 
break on the yellow sand. 

Instead of getting out their dainty luncheon, 


THE PICNIC 


37 


they sat down and dabbled aimlessly with the 
sand, and tried to talk. But their eyes turned 
continually towards the inlet. All at once 
Betty sprang to her feet and began to wave 
her pillow frantically, while Lois fluttered her 
veil in one hand and her handkerchief in the 
other, both calling out: 

“Jack! Jack! The Water Witch aho-o-o-y!^^ 

This time their signals were noticed, for 
Jack appeared on the deck and swung his cap 
swiftly in great semicircles. 

“Hello, Betty! What’s up? Glad to see 
you, Lois. Be there in a jiffy.” 

He turned and gave a command to his helms- 
man, and the launch swung in a sharp curve 
towards the point. It came to anchor a short 
distance off shore, and Jack was rowed ashore 
in the dinghy. 

“Dunny must be with the Kings,” said 
Betty in an undertone. “He won’t wait a 
minute to come to see you, Lois.” 

Jack stood up in the stern and saluted the 
girls gallantly. 

“Welcome home, Lois!” he called. 

Lois returned his welcome cordially and 
said to Betty in a whisper: 


38 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

‘‘He’s handsomer than ever! Perfectly 
stunning I ” 

“Yes, the same old Jack. Always in a 
good humor with himself and everybody else. 
And it ’s just splendid that he stands so 
high in his class at Harvard 1 Shall we go to 
his commencement, or to Dunny’s at Yale?” 
Betty asked, glancing slyly at Lois. 

“Oh, both, of course!” parried Lois. 

With a tidying jerk at her necktie, which 
hung from the wide collar of her dark-blue 
sailor suit, Betty ran down to the boat. 

“Hello, Betty! Hello, Lois! Tickled to 
death to see you!” cried Jack, as he stepped 
ashore and seized both of Lois’s hands in his 
vigorous grasp. “But what has happened to 
your boat ? ” he asked in surprise. 

Betty explained, and Jack directed his man 
to bail it out. In a short time the boat was 
fixed up “ship-shape and Bristol fashion,” 
according to Jack. 

“Let ’s have some luncheon,” proposed 
Betty. “Up there on the hill is a table made 
of a board fastened to two tree stumps. We 
can eat and watch for the Kings at the same 
time.” 


THE PICNIC 


39 


“Dunny ’s with them/’ said Jack, taking 
the basket and scrambling up to the table. 
The girls followed with the cushions. 

They had just spread out the napkins and 
placed the sandwiches, cheese, olives, and 
chocolate cake on plates, when Jack abruptly 
dropped the basket, made a megaphone of 
his hands to hail a passing boat, then rushed 
down to the shore. 

“It ’s the Kings’ launch. Dunny’s there in 
the bow, and they ’ve spied us,” cried Betty, 
as they ran breathlessly down the hill after 
Jack. 

After the first friendly confusion of wel- 
coming Lois back — for though Mrs. King 
was several years older than the two friends, 
she had a warm affection for them both ; and 
Lois was the first girl to attract big, generous, 
straightforward Dunny Lane — the idea of 
a picnic was developed, and Mrs. King sent 
to the launch for a hamper of provisions, 
including a large, thick, juicy beefsteak. 

The boys made a fireplace with stones, and 
built a clear, sparkling fire of driftwood, at 
which Betty broiled the steak. 

“Brave Betty Baird!” applauded King, 


40 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

who was devoting himself assiduously to the 
task of encouraging all around him to work. 

“Jack, more kindling! The fire’s going 
down,” Betty called in a quick tone. 

“A perfect crosspatch, like all cooks!” 
grumbled Jack, as he shuffled off with a sly 
wink at Dunny. “I ’m the only soul here 
earning his beefsteak with the sweat of his 
brow,” he growled, as he carefully mopped his 
forehead, on which there was not a sign of 
perspiration. “ But before I ’d be such a Miss 
Nancy as him!*' pointing to where Lois was 
teaching Dunny to set the table. 

Mary King lamented loudly that her incor- 
rigible husband would do nothing but hang 
over a clear cold spring, which he insisted he 
had discovered, though a barrel had been 
sunk deep around it long before, and a tin cup 
hung hospitably on a nail in the barrel. 

“Take this a minute. Jack, but mind your 
p’s and q’s.” Betty thrust the broiler into his 
hands and skipped off to get butter, salt, and 
pepper. In a second every one was rushing 
madly from all quarters towards the fire, for 
a distressing odor of burnt meat met them, 
half starved as they declared themselves. 


THE PICNIC 


41 


Betty snatched the sizzling toaster from Jack’s 
limp hand, while all chaffed him unmercifully 
for his lack of skill. 

“Another Alfred the Great!” he moaned, 
melodramatically, and he threw himself down 
on a log and hid his face in his hands. 

Betty scraped the cinders off the meat, 
which was none the worse for its fiery bath, 
and, escorted by Jack, carried it to the table. 

“ Everybody fall to ! ” cried King, heartily, 
setting the example. 

“Ply a good knife and fork!” urged Jack 
in a muffled tone, that showed that he was not 
shirking his own part. 

To the accompaniment of merry chatter and 
much “airy persiflage,” as King called it, the 
last scrap disappeared. Then King rose. 

“Jack, old man, your health! You’re 
certainly a great hand at rescuing girls from 
perilous positions.” He held aloft his battered 
tin cup with the cold spring water sweating it. 
“Here ’s to Jack Brooks, the life-saving hero! 
May he soon wear his Carnegie medal!” he 
cried. 

All sprang to their feet and raised their cups 
on high. 


42 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

‘‘May his shadow never grow less!” said 
Dunny, pounding him affectionately on the 
shoulder-blades. 

Betty and Lois laid their hands on their 
hearts and made profound bows, saying their 
gratitude was too deep for words. 

Delighted with the good fun of this unex- 
pected picnic, the little party voted to have 
another at the inlet very soon. As they dis- 
cussed it, however, the plan gradually gave 
way to another, proposed by Betty, — a May 
Party at the Bairds’ home, to welcome Lois. 

“You ’re not supposed to hear anything 
about this, Lois,” said Dunny. “Let’s get 
out of the way.” 

“Bless you, my children! Go!” Jack 
waved them off with uplifted hands. 

The plans for the May Party were made, 
it was understood, subject to Mrs. Baird’s 
approval. 

“You can bank on Mrs. Baird every time, 
when it comes to welcoming Lois and provid- 
ing fun for kids,” commented Jack. 

Betty and Mrs. King decided first that Lois 
should be chosen Queen of the May, and that 
Betty should train Edwyna and her “set” — 


THE PICNIC 


43 


as the child called her group of little girl 
friends — to sing an old May-day carol that 
was sung in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and 
to dance a May-pole Dance. 

About this time Jack and Dunny remarked 
that they wanted a “grand hurrah” for Lois, 
that May-poles and Elizabethan Carols were 
all right, but as for them, they wanted some 
athletics, even if they had to be Elizabethan 
athletics. 

To this the girls agreed, so the boys decided 
on archery and bowling on the green for the 
young people, croquet for the elderlies, and 
battledore and shuttlecock for the youngsters, 
and refreshments, said they, for all and plenty 
of ’em. 

“Boys are never happy without something 
to eat,” laughed Mrs. King. 

“And girls, of course, never eat, do they?” 
retorted Jack. 

A dance in the big hundred-year-old barn 
was settled on for the evening, and that 
seemed to suit all. 

“Whom shall we invite?” asked Mrs. 
King. 

“Everybody!” answered Betty, sweepingly. 


44 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

The usually exclusive Mrs. King looked at 
her curiously for a minute, then smiled as she 
patted her hand affectionately. 

“You dear old Betty!’’ she said softly. 
“Yes, everybody, as you say. Let ’s have 
everybody.” 

The list was made up on the spot. King 
fished around in his pockets for a while, and 
finally drew out a piece of paper and the stub 
of a lead-pencil, and wrote down the names. 

The picnic party broke up early in the after- 
noon, Betty and Lois going home in the Kings’ 
launch, with the leaky rowboat trailing igno- 
miniously behind. 


IV 

THE COMMONPLACE BOOK 

AS the four young people passed through 
AA the gate into the garden, Betty spied 
her old commonplace book on the 
bench under the cedar, “Betty’s Nook in the 
Corner,” as it was called. Indeed, every seat, 
tree, bush, or rock in “Boxwood” seemed to 
be named after some one. “Lois’s Throne” 
was the quaint old horse-block beside the gate, 
under the twin fir trees. “Edwyna’s Rock” 
held a commanding place on the left terrace, 
and nothing delighted her more than to sit on 
its rounding top and sing in her throaty way, 
evidently imagining herself a great prima- 
donna with the world at her feet. 

“I ’ve looked through my desk time and 
again for this,” cried Betty, picking up the 
commonplace book, and dropping it into her 
lap as she sat down. 

“Jack, please, give me one of your good 
lead-pencils,” she added, holding up her hand. 


46 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

‘‘Lois, I am going to write out that prophecy 
about the Baird castle.’’ 

“When Betty looks as demure and humble 
as that, and speaks out her words so that you 
can actually see ’em in italics, you may be 
sure she ’s exploding with pride,” laughed 
Jack, handing her his pencil with its well 
sharpened point. 

“Ah, cruel world!” murmured Betty, try- 
ing hard to look aggrieved. She opened her 
book and, with a pensive air, began to write 
down the prophecy, while Lois related the 
tradition to Jack and Dunny. 

“Why, Betty actually believes that about 
the eagles!” exclaimed Jack. 

“Believe it!” Betty elevated her fine 
straight nose in affected surprise. “Of course 
I believe it. Oh, you Americans are so practi- 
cal ! Now we Scotch are more mystical.” She 
turned with a superior air to her book. 

“Ah, I see! Your friend Webbie is pure 
unadulterated Scotch, too, I believe,” drawled 
Jack, significantly, as he sat down on the seat 
beside her. 

Betty appeared too absorbed to notice, 
while Lois and Dunmore wandered off and 


THE COMMONPLACE BOOK 47 

sat down on “Lois’s Throne.” They had 
much to talk over, for Dunny was about to 
graduate from Yale, and Lois had been travel- 
ling abroad during the winter months, with 
her father. 

“Now, Betty, what in the world is the use 
of that thing?” asked Jack, pointing a slight- 
ing finger at the worn marbled cover of the 
commonplace book. “You can’t possibly re- 
member many of the quotations, so they can’t 
help you much.” 

Betty gazed thoughtfully at it, making little 
dots on the page with her pencil. 

“I love the book. Jack. My father gave it 
to me when I was a youngster, and started me 
to copying good things into it and memoriz- 
ing them. So that I do know nearly all of 
them, really. Jack.” 

The contents of Betty’s commonplace book 
showed that her ideals had changed, that her 
mind was opening to deeper thoughts, and 
her spirit striving for a fuller and more perma- 
nent sway. There were fewer and fewer merely 
graceful poems and selections, and more that 
related to moods and character, as if her year 
in the workaday world had shown her the 


48 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

necessity of what might be called formal 
character building. In the words of one of her 
last entries, a genuine longing for “the grace 
of a cheerful heart, an even temper, sweetness, 
gentleness, and brightness,” might be read 
between the lines of her later quotations. 

“Well, Jack,” she said presently, with a 
lingering look at the book, “I ’m not so sure. 
And yet — But here ’s my latest: ‘He had 
a nature as large as the whole world, yet there 
was not room enough for the memory of a 
wrong.’ If every one was that way, would n’t 
this be a delightful world to live in ! ” 

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” considered 
Jack, doubtfully. “What snap would we 
have without our villains and our enemies ? 
Why, the drama would have to go begging 
if foes became extinct!” 

“Well, I ’m charmed with the idea,” said 
Betty, rereading the lines. “I ’ve had my 
eyes opened to the unlovely fact that resent- 
ment, a quick resentment that does n’t hang 
fire, though it ’s fiery enough, goodness knows, 
is my besetting sin.” 

“Oh, nonsense. Bet. You may be resentful 
enough when you think of that confounded 


THE COMMONPLACE BOOK 49 

Webbie, and nobody could blame you/’ 
grumbled loyal Jack. “You have less resent- 
ment than most people.” 

“As Epictetus says, — ” Betty read a line 
from her book, “ ‘ Let me be eaten by a lion, 
but not by’ — a Webbie !” she ended, laugh- 
ing. “Really, Jack, I think it would be per- 
fectly lovely to have a heart as big as the 
world and no room for the memory of a wrong, 
the dramatists and Jack Brooks to the con- 
trary notwithstanding.” 

“Oh, it sounds well enough. But you girls 
are rather transcendental.” 

“There it is! ‘Transcendental’!” ex- 
claimed Betty, up in arms at once. “Just as 
soon as a girl mentions something that is n’t 
clothes or tennis or cards or dancing or golf or 
yachting, she ’s ‘transcendental’!” 

“My, oh, my, what a string of ’em! Take 
care, Betty; you may have a spark of resent- 
ment in your big heart !” Jack laughed good- 
humoredly. 

Betty joined in the laugh. “Here’s your 
pencil, Jack. Thank you. Come, I ’ll beat 
you at a game of tennis, and then we ’ll see 
what ’s in your ‘ big heart.’ ” 


50 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Putting down her book, Betty snatched up 
a racket that lay on the steps of the side porch 
and ran to the court, closely followed by Jack, 
while Lois and Dunmore followed more 
leisurely. 


V 

BETTY AND THE WEBBIES 

B etty had now an occasional after- 
I noon free. Early this morning the mail 
brought a note from Mrs. King, asking 
her and Lois to go with them to the golf links. 
They would, she said, pick up Edith Banks 
and Gertrude Lynn on the way, and no doubt 
Jack and Dunmore would be there. 

Edwyna, too, was invited, but she decided 
to go with her special playmate, Christine 
Stopford. Christine’s father was an inveter- 
ate and skilful golf player, and both Edwyna 
and Christine felt that life would be more 
exciting if they tagged proudly after a real 
player, rather than strolled under trees or 
drank tea on the piazza, as Mrs. King did, and 
as Betty and Lois, being her guests, would of 
course be compelled to do; though, to be sure, 
they rarely left the field without playing a 
hole or two, at least, with the boys. 


52 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

While the course was not particularly noted 
for its excellence, yet it offered compensation 
to the casual player in the loveliness of the 
wide reach of sky and the beautiful rolling 
fair greens, through the last of which a brook 
ran briskly, making a hazard that was the 
despair of beginners and the fearful joy of the 
initiated. 

Mrs. King and her party wandered over the 
fields until they came to a rustic bench perched 
on a hilltop that overlooked the course and was 
pleasantly shaded by a clump of cherry trees. 
Mrs. King sank down on the bench, Dunny 
propped himself against one of the trees, 
while Jack and King threw themselves full 
length on the grass. Jack murmuring his one 
and unfailing quotation, “What ’s so rare as 
a day in June?” at the same time keeping a 
watchful eye on King. But the party affected 
a stony deafness. 

Before sitting down beside Mrs. King, 
Betty and Lois stood a moment to take a full 
view of the outspreading country. Gertrude 
Lynn, ever mindful of her clothes, sat down 
on a camp-chair which she had asked Dunny 
to carry from the Club House to protect her 


BETTY AND THE WEBBIES 53 

new spring gown from the baleful effects of 
the dust on a bench out in the open. Edith 
had gone off, without ceremony, to play with 
some friends. 

They all began to talk together, their 
tongues loosened by the fresh air and the ani- 
mated scene, and were commenting admir- 
ingly on the skilful play of some club members 
who were driving down the green in front 
of them, when a hush fell on the gay little 
party. Betty, not knowing the cause, turned 
to Mary King and was about to speak, but 
J ack coughed significantly and remarked : 

“Ahem! Betty, I see a friend of yours 
coming up the hill.’’ 

Surprised by his tone, Betty swung round 
and saw Mr. and Mrs. Webbie walking con- 
fidently towards the group. 

“‘Impeccable Webbie!’” Jack went on, 
his usually kind blue eyes glaring, as the little 
great man of the village and his youthful wife 
approached. 

“Is it possible they have the nerve to come 
here after the way they treated Betty?” said 
King, looking at them with cold surprise. 

“I shall turn my back on them, figuratively 


54 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

of course/’ said Mary, with a disdainful shrug 
of her shoulders. “I simply can’t endure 
snobs or bores. They are both.” 

‘‘I shall escape instanter.” King took Jack 
by the arm and dragged him away. 

Mrs. Webbie greeted them effusively. It was 
her ambition to become a member of the 
younger set, of which Mary King was the 
leader. A second wife, she was much younger 
than her husband. 

Mr. Webbie had not seen Betty since that 
evening in the library when he had urbanely 
commented on her “enviable youth,” and had 
then proceeded to dismiss her to make room 
for a distant relative, who had had neither 
training nor experience and who did not need 
the position. He now bowed to her without 
a trace of embarrassment. The fact that he 
had turned Betty from a position which she 
was filling with pronounced success was only 
one of the numerous selfish acts that made up 
his life, from a boyhood of poverty to a middle 
age of wealth. 

Betty had determined to forget the injustice, 
but her face now flushed with quick indigna- 
tion at the memory of all the worry and 


BETTY AND THE WEBBIES 55 

anxiety this pompous little man had caused 
them, and she bowed coolly in return to his 
wife’s nod. 

After nodding indifferently to Mrs. Webbie, 
Mrs. King turned her eyes languidly to the 
horizon, while Lois, too, seemed to find dis- 
tant objects more congenial. Mrs. King, with 
the coolness of a woman of the world, could 
treat a pushing woman like this to a glance of 
amusement and a slight shrug of the shoulders, 
and then forget her. This treatment was now 
being accorded to immature Mrs. Webbie. 

Her husband stood talking placidly on the 
light and trivial subjects a man of his calibre 
thinks appropriate to women, and was jingling 
his keys in his pocket. 

The bench was large enough to hold only 
the three women, and though Betty had natur- 
ally stood up when the Webbies approached, 
she sat down again absently, and turned to 
watch Mr. Stopford and another club mem- 
ber who were passing. Seeing Edwyna and 
Christine following them, she waved her hand- 
kerchief, and they threw kisses to her in return. 

It was not long, however, before she dis- 
covered Mary King’s determination to ignore 


56 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

the unwelcome callers. Though she knew it 
was on her account, Betty could not sit com- 
fortably while the process was going on. 
Turning to look at Mary, she saw that though 
Lois was still standing, Mrs. Webbie evidently 
did not feel at liberty to occupy the vacant 
place without an invitation, and seeing the 
deepening look of mortification in her eyes, 
Betty’s resentment took wing as suddenly as 
it had come. 

“Mrs. Webbie, won’t you take this seat?” 
she said, starting up impulsively and smiling 
at the embarrassed woman, who hardly knew 
how to act in view of Mrs. King’s evident 
indifference. 

“ Thank you. Miss Baird,” said Mrs. Web- 
bie, but gazing expectantly at Mary. 

“By the way. Bet,” said Mary, paying no 
attention to Mrs. Webbie, “we must begin our 
game or the sun will go down on our” — 
she paused, laughing, and adding in a low 
voice, — “our wrath.” 

She stood up and, looking at Lois and in- 
cluding Mrs. Webbie carelessly in her glance, 
moved towards the first tee. 

“I thought I saw Mr. King as I came up,” 


BETTY AND THE WEBBIES 57 

Betty heard Mr. Webbie say, as he trotted off 
in an effort to keep pace with Mary’s rapid 
steps. In his active business as a close self- 
corporation he had gained an unenviable 
thickness of skin, but his wife, who had per- 
haps received more telling discipline in pursuit 
of her social aspirations, could not conceal 
her chagrin. 

Betty walked along at Mrs. Webbie’s side, 
thinking : 

“I can’t just see why she should be punished 
for her husband’s meanness.” 

Soothed by this thought, she kept up a 
lively conversation that soon restored Mrs. 
Webbie’s self-complacency. She insisted that 
Betty should come over to see her, and re- 
marked that she herself would drop in some 
day to see Betty when she had nothing else 
to do. 

This last gracious and naive assurance 
caused such a ripple of real merriment to pass 
over Betty’s face that Lois wondered what the 
dull woman could be saying that was so hu- 
morous. Continuing, Mrs. Webbie mourned 
her inability to learn to play golf. 

^^And they do say it takes the flesh off 


58 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

wonderful,” she said regretfully, her shortness 
of breath, maybe, making her abbreviate her 
adverbs so painfully. 

“ Bet, you Ye going to die young,” whispered 
Mary. ‘‘I see you’ll never have much fun 
out of a fallen foe,” she added, drawing Betty 
to one side, and leaving Mr. and Mrs. Webbie 
to go down the hill arm in arm. 

‘‘I know it,” admitted Betty. ‘‘At least, not 
in cold blood.” 

Betty lacked that self-complacency that 
makes a girl hard on the faults or deficiencies 
of others, for she was thoroughly awake to the 
fact that she had plenty of her own. Yet she 
had a certain inflexible sense of justice which, 
though offset by her warm heart and generous 
spirit, made any lack of fair play, as in Mr. 
Webbie’s treatment of her, hard to forgive. 
The backbone of Betty’s character was fairness. 

She was silent as they walked down the 
steep hill, her mind busy with this encounter. 

“Come, Betty, girl,” said Mary, “this 
‘rugged virtue’ of yours is making you dull. 
Come over to the Club House and have a cup 
of that which ‘cheers but does not inebriate.’” 

As they followed the path that ran around 


BETTY AND THE WEBBIES 59 

the side of a hill down to the Club House, 
they came across Jack, who, thinking Mary 
had certainly disposed of the Webbies, was 
returning trustingly to meet them, just in time 
to come face to face with Webbie. 

‘‘Why, how d’ ye do, Mr. Brooks he said 
urbanely, and linking his arm in Jack’s he 
trudged along, leaving his stout wife to follow 
breathless, red, and perspiring. 

Betty looked after her pityingly. “Just 
think, Mary, how happy that poor soul would 
be on their veranda, fanning herself, drinking 
iced tea or lemonade, and talking with a con- 
genial soul!” 

“It ’s too ridiculous,” said Mary, but with 
none of Betty’s pity. “She comes here to be 
in the swim, not because she cares for golf. 
Why does n’t she do what she cares for ? ” 

In one corner of the broad veranda of the 
picturesque Club House, now crowded with 
members and their friends, they found Edith 
cosily drinking lemonade with Lois, Gertrude, 
and Dunny, who had managed to reach it 
by a roundabout route. Below them, on the 
well-rolled croquet ground, they could see 
Edwyna and Christine engrossed in a game. 


6o BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


while on the clay tennis courts the Club ex- 
perts were engaged in a hotly contested match, 
encouraged by the applause of the spectators 
who lined the sides of the courts. 

Jack soon joined the party. He had suffered 
the familiarity of the man he detested not a 
moment longer than courtesy demanded from 
a younger to an older man. His loyalty to 
Betty turned his carelessly good-natured treat- 
ment of people in general and bores in particu- 
lar into an attitude of dignified reserve in this 
case. 


VI 

Betty’s golden minute 

L ate the same afternoon, while Lois 
was writing to her father, Betty waited 
for her, cosily curled up in her window- 
seat, book in hand, and alternately read and 
watched Edwyna’s roller-skate “cavortings” 
on the flag walk just under her window. 

Mrs. Baird stopped as she passed the open 
door. 

“Why, Betty,” she exclaimed reproachfully, 
“look at your room ! Your hat not put away, 
your coat on the bed ! And your hair !” 

Betty scrambled to her feet and drew her 
mother in. 

“Now, mother, darling, just you sit on that 
comfortable seat while I explain. I washed my 
hair this morning, so I let everything else go.” 
Mrs. Baird looked puzzled. 

“Have n’t you time — ” She stopped, at a 
loss. 


62 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


‘‘Oh, yes, plenty of time,” answered Betty, 
nonchalantly. Her eyes were full of mirth as 
she glanced around the room, with the papers, 
books, and coat and hat scattered about on 
tables and chairs. “But, mother, I just can’t 
keep my hair up. The pins are always drop- 
ping out; and, somehow, when my hair acts 
that way it takes away all my sense of respon- 
sibility. It does n’t seem to make any differ- 
ence whether school keeps or not!” ended 
Betty, as if clenching a brilliant and convin- 
cing syllogism. 

Mrs. Baird laughed. 

“In that case, Betty, I ’ll put a little brillian- 
tine on your brush and restore your normal 
moral sense, at least until you put away your 
hat and that freshly laundered shirt-waist. I 
suppose the other things are merely artistic 
disarray.” 

“’T was ever thus !” sighed Betty, dramatic- 
ally, clasping her flying hair in her two hands 
and inserting more hairpins. “Comes of hav- 
ing Puritan ancestors. Can’t be shiftless 
for a single moment.” 

However, the hat was thrust into its box 
and put away on the top shelf of the closet. 


BETTY’S GOLDEN MINUTE 63 

the coat was on its hanger in a trice, and Betty 
sat down by her mother and pointed out 
Edwyna’s new accomplishment. One of the 
farmer’s children had joined her, and they 
were having a keen competition with one 
skate apiece. 

In spite of Betty’s airy disavowal of moral 
responsibility, she had been thinking deeply, 
and perhaps perplexedly, about her encounter 
with Mr. Webbie. 

For a time there was silence. Then Betty 
slipped her hand into her mother’s and spoke 
hesitatingly. 

“Mother?” 

“What is it, dear?” She turned around 
expectantly. She knew that Betty had some- 
thing on her mind when she began with that 
almost reluctant tone of questioning. 

“I saw — I talked — with the — the Web- 
bies to-day!” 

“Yes?” Mrs. Baird leaned forward. 

Then Betty told her mother about her after- 
noon’s experience. 

“I ’m glad this has happened, sweetheart,” 
said Mrs. Baird. “I couldn’t bear to think 
there was any one in the world you could n’t 


64 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

think kindly about. You feel better about 
them now, don’t you ? ” 

Betty played with her mother’s ring, smiling 
and shaking her head slowly. 

“I did n’t have a word to say to Mr. Webbie, 
and I don’t know that I feel a bit better about 
him and his old library. But I did pity her, 
and I just thought. Why should she suffer for 
what her husband did ? She was n’t to blame 
for it.” 

“It ’s the easiest thing in the world to vent 
our wrath on anybody connected with one who 
has injured us. I was n’t sure that even Mr. 
Webbie’s cat would be safe from you,” said 
Mrs. Baird, playfully; then, more seriously: 

“Betty, darling, you must do your best to 
stamp out resentment. If left to rankle, there 
is almost nothing else that will hurt a fine 
nature so quickly. And there ’s only one way 
to destroy it, — to love your neighbor as your- 
self. Otherwise there is no peace in the heart. 
It seems to the young — yes, and to the old, too 
— a deep and hard philosophy, but only love 
can make life broad and livable. That ’s the 
reason we have the second part of the Summary 
of the Law.’^ 


BETTY’S GOLDEN MINUTE 65 

Betty shook her head rebelliously and 
started up. 

“ I don’t see how you can compel love, — and 
for such people as the Webbies! Just think 
how unjust Mr. Webbie was to me, putting 
me out of that position 1” 

“You don’t need to ‘compel’ it,” said her 
mother, smiling at Betty’s hearty and natural 
distaste for the idea of trying to love the 
Webbies I “ It will compel you, if every time 
you remember an injustice you try to think 
of some kind thing about the one who has 
done it, and, when possible, do something for 
that person.” 

Betty gave an incredulous whistle. 

“Oh, mother! Think something kind of 
Mr. Webbie?” 

Betty was not the first to find that a hard 
saying. 

Mrs. Baird smiled at her daughter’s vehe- 
mence. 

“Sweetheart, are you happy in your work 
with Miss Minturne ? ” she asked abruptly. 

Betty turned to her mother rather wonder- 
ingly. 

“Why, mother, what a question! You 

5 


66 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


know I am perfectly happy. I think it ’s 
wonderful, the way it came about!” 

Mrs. Baird’s gentle eyes twinkled at the 
success of her little trap. 

‘‘Betty, dear,” she asked, “didn’t Mr. 
Webbie have something to do with bringing it 
all about?” 

Betty looked at her mother suspiciously. 
Then a ripple broke over her face, and she 
laughed appreciatively. 

“ Mother, darling, score one for you ! The 
joke ’s on me! Yes, I ’ll have to give Mr. 
Webbie some of the credit, though honestly 
I do it grudgingly.” 

“The effort will be mechanical at first, but 
not insincere.” Mrs. Baird paused, as if try- 
ing to recall something, then, with an amused 
smile, she continued: 

“Betty, don’t you remember that little 
book of your grandmother Seabury’s, ‘The 
Poor Rich Man and the Rich Poor Man ’ ? 
You used to read it when you could barely 
spell out the words.” 

“Why, of course I do!” Betty ran to the 
bookcase. “I can put my hand on it in 
the dark. It ’s on the top shelf, with her 


BETTY’S GOLDEN MINUTE 67 

Fenelon’s ‘ Pious Thoughts/ and Young’s 
^ Night Thoughts.’ ” 

She took down the slender, faded green book, 
on whose narrow frayed back was the title in 
plain gold letters, and opened it gayly at the 
first page, and read: 

“‘To Miss Elizabeth Seabury, 
from her Friend, 

Joseph Lyman. Jan. i, 1830.”’ 

Betty laughed. “Is n’t that quaint, — ‘To 
Miss Elizabeth Seabury,’ when grandmother 
was only six ! And is n’t the writing beautifully 
plain ! And literary looking ! ” 

Betty looked intently at the old-fashioned 
writing, then turned over the leaves quickly. 

“But what made you speak of this?” she 
asked, as her mother took the book. 

“Don’t you see, Betty, that Mr. Webbie is 
‘ the Poor Rich Man ’ ? Now, can’t you give him 
the same consideration that you do our farmer 
John here? Just because he ’s poor and has 
a delicate wife we overlook a great many of 
his shortcomings.” 

“But that seems different, somehow,” said 
Betty, smiling, as though she did see but was 


68 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


not willing to acknowledge it when it came 
to the pompous Mr. Webbie. ‘‘Poor people 
have such hard times.’’ 

“Harry ’s been given a book as a prize by 
his schoolmaster, and this is what he finds on 
the blank page as he shows it to his two girl 
friends.” Mrs. Baird then read, in her pleasant, 
cultivated voice: “‘It gives me much pleasure 
to record here the diligence and success of my 
esteemed pupil, Harry Aikin, and still more 
to testify to his strict practice of the golden 
rule of this book, “Do unto others as ye would 
they should do unto you.” ’ ” 

“Oh, I remember, mother! The girls were 
discussing it, and little Susy said this prize 
was for loving everybody — here it is — but 
I remember I loved Harry because he said he 
didn’t love everybody ‘by a seaful.’ Now 
we ’d say ‘jugful.’ Then they proved he 
could n’t follow the Golden Rule without 
loving people, 

“That ’s what I wanted to find,” and Mrs. 
Baird took the book again and turned over 
the pages. “He said his mother told him just 
to do a person a kindness, to set about to make 
him happier, and the love, or something that 


BETTY’S GOLDEN MINUTE 69 

would answer the purpose, would be pretty 
sure to come/’ 

“ I used to love that little book,” said Betty. 
She hesitated, for she knew how her mother 
prized all keepsakes of her own mother’s. “I 
love it now, for it ’s so quaint.” Betty patted 
the little volume. ‘‘ But, mother, is n’t it a 
trifle Sunday-schoolish ?” 

“You ‘might do worse,’ as Miss Jane says, 
than to read some of these ‘Sunday-schoolish’ 
books,” Mrs. Baird laughed. “If you live up 
to the Golden Rule, you won’t find it a goody- 
goody living, I assure you,” she added, em- 
phatically. “It takes pluck and plenty of it. 
You know Who inspired the words — the 
bravest life ever lived,” finished Mrs. Baird, 
softly, as Betty sat down and leaned against 
her knee. 

“To keep the Golden Rule would make a 
Golden Life, would n’t it, mother mine ? ” 
said Betty, abruptly, playing absently with the 
book 

“Yes,” said her mother. “One might 
begin with a Golden Year, then accumulate 
Gold for a lifetime.” 

“I ’d rather try for a Golden Day first — 


70 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

no, a Golden Minute would be safer,” Betty 
laughed. “I might possibly have a Golden 
Minute.” 

‘‘Why not begin our Gold hoarding this 
Golden Minute?” said Mrs. Baird. She took 
the little book and wrote lightly on the fly-leaf : 

“ April thirtieth. 

Betty Baird: her Golden Year.” 

She looked at it thoughtfully for a moment, 
then added this line from an early American 
poet: 

“Pour blessings round thee like a shower 
of gold!” 

Betty leaned over to watch her writing. 

“Oh, mother!” she cried, catching her 
breath as the last word was put down. “ It ’s 
like — like taking a pledge !” 

She rose to her feet and stooped over her 
mother, kissing her hair and whispering: 

“I ’ll try, mother, dearest!” 

Then shooting a mischievous glance back- 
wards as she ran from the room, she called 
over her shoulder: 

“But it would have been nice to stay at 
home with you, in the Silver-Lining Library ! ” 


VII 

*'nods and becks, and wreathed smiles ” 

J OHN was the farmer-on-shares of the 
century-old farm which the Bairds had 
bought, and which Betty had named 
^‘Boxwood,"’ because of the thick old box 
that wound plumply up to the front and side 
doors and encircled the few remaining flower- 
beds. He was a queer, taciturn, glum creature, 
his only recreation foretelling the weather. At 
almost any hour of the day one could see his 
lean neck twisted towards the sky, and his jaw 
and mouth — which occupied half his long 
face — tilted to a strange angle of observation. 
On this May-day Betty found him planted at 
the front gate, in his prophetic attitude. 

‘‘Now do please say that it will be a splen- 
did bright day,’’ Betty besought him. She 
gazed anxiously towards the southwest, where 
a few clouds had piled up since she looked out 
of her window early in the morning. 


72 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

“Don’t know as I kin, truthful,” John 
growled. He did not like to be disturbed at 
this ticklish business. 

Betty’s heart sank. She had great faith in 
his powers, as he had been a sailor in his youth 
and had spent much of his time scanning the 
sky. Yet hope did not die, for at best John 
was not a cheerful herald of the day. His 
prophecies were Jeremiads too often to be 
wholly trustworthy. Then, too, poor John had 
“dyspepsy.” 

“Look at them clouds raisin’ from the lee 
agin the wind, like birds raisin’ from the water. 
It cert’n’y looks to me ’s if we ’d have failin’ 
weather ’bout high tide,” he went on, with 
growing hope. 

“And high tide at 3.17 to-day!” Betty was 
dismayed. “Now just think how disappointed 
your little girls will be if it rains,” she cajoled 
him, trying to soften his prognostications by 
an appeal to the one well-known tender spot 
in his heart. 

John squinted at the sky once more, then 
looked towards his house, where his two tow- 
headed children were racing around and flap- 
ping their blue gingham aprons at the chickens 
scratching in the garden. 


NODS, BECKS, AND SMILES 73 

“Them clouds might maybe lighten up a 
leetle mite towards noon” he granted. He 
was plunged in thought for a moment. 

“Still, ‘A wet May brings a barnful o’ hay.’ 
Ef it rains we otter rec’leck that,” he said 
gleefully. He walked off with the air of a man 
at peace with his conscience and the whole 
world. 

Betty was rooted to the spot. 

“Well, of all detestable people !” she began. 
Then a humorous smile dimpled the corners 
of her mouth, and she ran in to breakfast to 
set the family off with John, the Joy Killer’s 
latest bit of constitutional saturninity. 

But John’s prophecy did not bring its own 
fulfilment. 

Sweetness and warmth through the air, 
exquisite mingling of yellow greens in the foli- 
age of the arching elms against the back- 
ground of dark firs, a blue sky with swarming 
clouds of fleece, deep shadows on the bay 
from the low wooded hills,— all gave to Betty’s 
home this May-day an elusive charm found 
in a mezzotint after Gainsborough. 

Jack and Dunny came early to hang ribbons 
of contrasting colors from the top of the May- 


74 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

pole, which were to be woven by the children 
in their dance. Mr. King brought a splendid 
curtain of crimson and gold to throw over 
“Lois’s Throne,” while Jack’s mother sent a 
load of decorative shrubs. 

Of course Lois knew that the children were 
to welcome her, and entered gayly into the 
play. There was to be as little formality as 
possible, she said, in the part she was to take 
in the ceremony, for the dainty maids with 
their joyous songs and sweet-smelling garlands 
would make the queen’s part subordinate. So 
she threw aside all self-consciousness and lost 
herself in the jolly spirit of the day. 

John made hay while the sun shone — 
since his thunder-clouds had gone back on him 
— by cutting the new grass and clipping the 
old box into symmetrical trimness. Chairs 
and tables, tottering always a little down- 
hill, stood under the trees, giving a sense of 
merrymaking that was inspired partly by 
their festive air of irresponsibility as safe 
places for body and limb, for dishes or food. 
The snowy damask, the great bowls of jon- 
quils and dogwood, and the blue dishes, added 
their touch of romance to this picture filched 


NODS, BECKS, AND SMILES 75 

from the picturesque days of Merrie Old 
England. 

Craig Ellsworth came early, bringing his 
mother and Dottie (aged five) in his boat. 
Betty and Craig had been good comrades 
ever since the Bairds had moved to Long 
Island, as Craig was her nearest neighbor. 
They had swapped talents, Betty helping the 
lad with his Latin, while he taught her scien- 
tific gardening. 

Craig had his own way to make in the world 
and was quite unaccustomed to society until 
he fell in with Betty and her friends. Then 
he went to college, and at once a transforma- 
tion began. He was passing through the 
dandy period, and Betty changed her name 
for him from “Clammerboy"’ to “Arbiter 
elegantium.” He had gained to perfection 
what he called savoir-faire^ somewhat laugh- 
ingly, it ’s true, but with more seriousness than 
Jack or Dunny, to whom society was an old 
story, would attach to the phrase. Betty often 
wondered which way the scales would turn, 
and held her breath to-day when she saw him 
carrying a slim walking-stick. 

Doctor and Mrs. Baird, with Mrs. Brooks 


76 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

and Mary King and others, received the guests 
informally under the cedars. 

Lois was not dressed in conventional May 
Queen style, for she wanted to join in the 
games; so the only touch of regality was a 
gold filigree belt on her simple white China 
silk in which she tucked the violets Dunmore 
Lane had brought her. 

Betty’s creamy flannel suit was, to use 
Gertrude’s word about it — and Gertrude was 
an authority on clothes — ‘"chic,” and no one 
could doubt its becomingness. Lois had stuck 
a rose into her golden wavy hair; and the 
succession of expressions on her face, one 
moment blithe, then anxious, again dimpling 
with fun, showing concern for some guest’s 
comfort, smiling whimsically at one of John’s 
characteristic actions, or brimming over with 
the joke Jack had told her, all evinced a per- 
sonality of sweetness, of humor, of sunnyness, 
of generous high spirits that made things go 
and made her loved. 

Mrs. Ellsworth, when shaking hands with 
her, whispered, “You are Craig’s guiding 
star ! ” and for the moment, since the air was 
so clear and sweet and the sun so bright and 


NODS, BECKS, AND SMILES 77 

the world so happy, Betty thrilled at the words. 
A guiding star ! 

But her sense of humor was too much for 
her, and as she looked at Craig’s jaunty little 
cane she knew she did n’t want to be his Star ! 
Involuntarily her eyes sought Jack, — hand- 
some, debonair Jack Brooks, rich, well-bred, 
a prince of good fellows. Then her hand was 
clutched, and she heard Edwyna’s elegant 
announcement of the arrival of Bishop Wa- 
borne and his two grandsons, Paul and 
Reginald. 

All swarmed around the Bishop, for though 
a high dignitary, there was so much simplicity 
and sweetness in his nature that children loved 
to catch his hand and had a sense of pecu- 
liar nearness to the tall, distinguished-looking 
clergyman. 

Reginald seized Betty’s hands in both of his, 
while Paul greeted her not less warmly but 
with more dignity, as became an older brother 
and a theological student. Betty spoke to 
Paul with some shyness. Though she admired 
him, she did not feel easy with him. She felt 
that her gay temperament was displeasing to 
him, and Betty had always wanted to please 


78 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Paul, though why she could not have explained, 
even to herself, and certainly not to Lois. 

Perhaps Charles Lamb — sad misnomer — 
made the sensation of the early arrivals. A 
classmate of Dunmore Lane’s, he was a true 
satellite, tolerated for the really good heart 
which shone through his harmless eccentrici- 
ties. ‘‘The Count,” as they had dubbed him 
at Yale, appeared to-day in all the glory of 
yellow waistcoat, yellow buckskin gloves, yel- 
low spats, shining top hat, and a huge horse- 
head walking-stick, with his bulldog at his 
heels. 

Clever, handsome Edith Banks, with a 
touch of airiness befitting a May-day party in 
her white billowy hat, was there, “the very one 
for Reginald,” Betty and Lois decided ; while 
Gertrude Lynn, in her trailing gray Directoire 
gown, beamed on Lamb, whom Jack at once 
piloted up to her. 

“The others,” as King called the guests who 
were not in the intimate inner circle, came 
swiftly in carriages, automobiles, or boats, in 
true holiday spirits. 


VIII 

THE MAY-DAY GAMES 

“ I, I been a rambling all this night, 

And sometime of this day ; 

And now returning back again, 

I brought you a garland gay. 

“ A garland gay I brought you here. 

And at your door I stand ; 

’Tis nothing but a sprout, but ’tis well budded out. 
The works of our Lord’s hand.” 

T he ancient May-day carol rang out 
full and clear and sweet from the 
thicket of lilacs, as nine little maids, 
singing blithely and swinging their garlands 
gay, like dryads from their native oaks, came 
dancing across the greensward to Lois on her 
“throne/^ 

Dottie, herself a dimpled sunny flower, 
with a lightly woven basket of posies on her 
head, the tendrils rippling down among her 
curls, tripped ahead, lisping the song; then 


8o BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


hand in hand and two by two danced Edwyna 
and Christine, Phyllis and Priscilla, Henrietta 
and Mary, Virginia and Marybelle, all in 
white, with fluttering sashes of violet, blue, or 
pink. 

Dancing and singing in unison, they flung 
their fragrant rosy wreathes to the breeze, and 
like a lovely rainbow they formed in front of 
Lois, singing the carol again, and chanting 
with saucy smiles the cheery refrain : 

“ Why don’t you do as we have done, 

The very first of May ? ” 

They bent one knee before their queen and 
showered the sweet-smelling arbutus upon her. 
Again they bent the knee and, moving back- 
wards, courtesied low at every third step as 
they gayly repeated, with laughing eyes on 
their queen, the elfishly mocking refrain, as 
farther and farther they danced away to the 
May-pole : 

“ Why don’t you do as we have done, 

The very first of May ? ” 

‘‘Why, yes, why don’t we?” cried Betty, 
springing up. “Lois, you and Dunny first.” 



THEY FORMED IN FRONT 

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THE MAY-DAY GAMES 


8i 


Off over the green danced the Queen and 
Dunny Lane; Jack grasped Betty’s hand and 
they whirled merrily after them; Alexander 
King and Mary flew close behind; Craig and 
Edith clasped hands and went skipping away; 
Reginald followed briskly with Dorothy King; 
Paul snatched up one of John’s little girls and 
danced away ; . Charlie Lamb and Gertrude 
came on behind; John and his wife, hand in 
hand, trudged grimly after; the Bishop fol- 
lowed in a dignified minuet step with Mrs. 
Baird, as the Doctor and Mrs. Brooks stepped 
lightly off. No one failed in this happy sur- 
render to the tempting invitation of the lovely 
sprites, and the spring day was filled with 
voices chanting merrily: 

“ Why don’t you do as we have done, 

The very first of May ? ” 

Across the soft grass the feet of young and 
old danced a royal welcome to the May-day, 
and the children caught the swaying ribbons 
and wove them swiftly about the May-pole. 

“May I put this piece of May in your but- 
tonhole?” asked Christine of the Bishop. 

“I shall be delighted, my dear.” The 


82 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


Bishop leaned down benignly, so her timid 
fingers could place the blossom on his coat. 
“It seems all a piece of May,’’ he added, 
straightening up and looking around. Then, 
noticing Doctor and Mrs. Baird and Mrs. 
Brooks coming up, he sportively challenged 
them to a game of croquet. 

Others started bowling on the green, which 
Craig explained in his terse, precise way. The 
children skipped off to play a brisk game of 
battledore and shuttlecock. Then there was 
a call for the most exciting feature of the after- 
noon, the archery contest. 

Jack, an enthusiastic and skilful archer, 
now appeared, weighed down with bows and 
arrows, which he dropped on a chair. His 
young brother Rodney tagged proudly after 
him, lugging the target. Jack had greatly 
interested Betty and Lois, and to some extent 
Edith and Gertrude, in the game, and had 
given them a good deal of instruction. 

Now, after he had placed the target near the 
stone fence, he turned to them. 

“Ladies first!” He bowed, waving his 
hand towards the weapons. “And let your 
arrows stick in the target.” 


THE MAY-DAY GAMES 83 

“You are not going to make us shoot first/^ 
protested the girls. “We won’t shoot first.” 

They locked their hands behind them. The 
boys surrounded them and insisted, but they 
stood fast. Suddenly Betty sprang forward 
and seized a bow and arrow. 

“I suppose you want us to shoot first, Jack 
Brooks, so you can notch our arrows for us,” 
she mocked gayly. “Very well, ‘jolly Knight,’ 
the games must go on, so I ’ll give you the 
chance.” 

“Aha, old man, they see through your little 
game all right!” laughed Dunny, digging 
his elbows into Jack’s ribs. In return. Jack 
gave a huge knowing wink as Betty got ready 
to shoot. 

Poising her graceful young figure, with the 
left foot advanced, she raised her bow, drew 
her right hand steadily back to her ear, fast- 
ened her eye on the target, and let fly. 

“Ninel” instantly called out Craig, who 
stood down at the target. 

“Hooray! Bully for Betty!” cheered the 
boys, tossing their caps into the air, while 
the girls clapped triumphantly. 

The bowlers, croquet players, and the 


84 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

children with their battledores and shuttle- 
cocks, hearing the uproar, rushed in a body to 
the course, lined up on each side, and craned 
their necks eagerly to see the target. Seeing 
Betty’s arrow sticking almost exactly in the 
centre of the bull’s-eye, they burst into a round 
of applause. 

‘‘Oh, girls,” screamed Edwyna, shrilly, 
waving her battledore wildly to the slow ones 
as she pranced around, her black eyes snap- 
ping, “oh, girls. Cousin Betty hit the bull right 
in the eye ! ” 

Little Rodney Brooks sniffed scornfully at 
Edwyna’s bragging, and glowered darkly at 
her. 

“Huh! Accidents will happen!” 

The other girls then displayed their skill, 
all shooting carefully and with varying de- 
grees of success, but all doing pretty well. 

At last, when the boys’ turn came, the target 
looked like the twin brother to a porcupine. 

“ Be sure you notch the arrow in the bull’s- 
eye,” Dunny warned Jack, with a smile at 
Betty as Jack stepped up to shoot. 

“Drive it clear through the target. Jack!” 
called out King. 


THE MAY-DAY GAMES 85 

“Don’t let those girls beat you,” pleaded 
Rodney, turning his back on Edwyna. 

With a great show of care Jack picked out 
a bow, tested it, twanged the string, and ex- 
amined it carefully for fraying; picked up 
one arrow after another and sighted along each 
until perfectly satisfied that he had a straight 
one ; held up a blade of grass to test the force 
and direction of the wind; planted himself 
firmly on his feet, raised his bow, aimed long 
and carefully, shot, and missed ! His arrow 
plumped into the old stone wall and flew into 
a dozen pieces. 

The spectators gazed in surprise for a 
second, then set up a shout of laughter, and 
the little girls, facing the downcast Rodney, 
exulted at the top of their voices. “ He missed ! 
He missed ! Betty beat him ! Ha, ha ! Ha, 
ha!” 

Dunny, King, Craig, Reginald, and Paul 
surrounded Jack, and hilariously wished him 
better luck next time. He tried hard to look 
chagrined, when he finally freed himself from 
the boys and walked over to where the girls 
were standing in a group, watching the pro- 
ceedings with suspicious eyes. 


86 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


“I certainly did my best. There must have 
been something wrong with the feathering of 
that arrow/’ he explained speciously. 

‘‘Jack, you’re a perfect humbug! You 
did your level ‘best’ to miss it,” said Betty. 
“Now, Dunny, it ’s your turn. Do play fair, 
won’t you ? ” 

“Of course, Betty, of course!” Dunny as- 
sured her earnestly. 

Jack suppressed a snicker, and the other boys, 
with averted faces, hurried out of earshot. 

Dunny’s preparations for his shot were, if 
possible, more painstaking than Jack’s, but his 
arrow landed on the very edge of the target 
and hung dangling there. He looked at it 
with a pained expression. 

“Great Scott, Jack !” he ejaculated. “You 
and I ’d better give up archery and go back 
to marbles and mumbly-peg ! We can’t shoot 
for sour apples!” 

“You ’re certainly a rank shot, old fellow; 
one of the worst ever!” Jack agreed cheer- 
fully, slapping him on the shoulder. 

“ Beat you, anyhow,” retorted Dunny. 

In the end Betty was tumultuously pro- 
claimed victor, with Lois a close second, and 


THE MAY-DAY GAMES 


87 


they were showered with congratulations by 
the boys, who professed breathless admiration 
at their marvellous skill. 

All the younger folks stayed for the dance 
in the barn in the evening. It was a fine, sub- 
stantial building, made of heavy timbers, with 
the conscientious workmanship of a hundred 
years ago. It had been cleaned until it shone, 
and the boys took great delight in hanging 
from the massive beams ships’ lanterns and 
quaint old household ones long out of use, and 
ranging picturesquely on a high shelf pots of 
flowers and shrubs, and festooning the walls 
with flags and bunting. 

The great wide doors were flung open, and 
the crescent moon came out over the little hills 
and shone full into the deep barn, as the 
merrymakers strolled in two by two. The 
floor was excellent for dancing, and bundles 
of sweet yellow hay around the walls formed 
seats for the onlookers and for those weary of 
tripping ‘‘the light fantastic toe.” 

The village fiddler sat on a barrel in a corner, 
under the light of a great brass ship’s lantern, 
and struck up wild rollicking airs, “Money 
Musk” and “The Sailor’s Hornpipe” being 


88 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


the favorites. Soon there was a call for a 
waltz tune, and waltzes, polkas, and square 
dances followed in rapid succession until all 
were thoroughly tired. 

The fiddler leaned back against the wall, 
his ancient fiddle across his knee, and the 
dancers dropped on the bundles of hay to rest, 
while Betty and Lois dipped out old Katie’s 
delicious fruit lemonade. All at once they 
were startled by a weird sound. Looking up, 
they saw dancing down the middle of the barn 
floor a mad-looking creature, making mad 
music. 

‘‘What — ” Betty started to ask, when the 
queer, fantastic object drew near. “Why, 
it ’s a Highlander in his kilts. And, oh, Lois, 
he ’s playing a bagpipe ! ” 

A second figure, similarly dressed, flung 
itself after the first, and the two wild Scots 
danced a Highland fling in the centre of the 
floor, their claymores and dirks gleaming 
fearfully, and then, with frantic gestures and 
a last wild note from the pipes, the two dis- 
appeared as mysteriously as they had come, 
and went to their quiet gardeners’ lodges on 
the Brooks’ estate! 


IX 

JUST AS LOIS HAD SAID 

B etty was at her desk, figuring busily 
I on a set of specifications, some particu- 
larly knotty problems bringing passing 
frowns to her forehead, when Miss Minturne, 
tall, graceful, distinguished, with decision 
written on every handsome feature, swept 
through the room and stopped in front of the 
desk. She began to play with a book, picking 
it up, laying it down, only to go through the 
process again. 

“Won’t you have my swivel chair. Miss 
Minturne?” Betty sprang up and pushed it 
forward, for it was one of their jokes that 
nothing in the world but a revolving chair 
could give them a sense of business prosperity. 
Each offered her own to the other as a mark 
of very special favor. 

“No, thank you, Betty,” replied Miss Min- 
turne, absently, too much in earnest to notice 


90 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

the little byplay. “I ’m going to run away 
to-morrow. Do you think your mother would 
let you run with me ? ” 

Betty caught her breath. It was just as 
Lois had said ! 

“I can ask her to-night, and telephone to 
you. I M love to run away with you, and I ’m 
sure my mother would let me.’’ 

‘‘Why not ask your father at luncheon?” 

Betty laughed in her happy, infectious 
manner. 

“I could. But father would be certain to 
say, ‘Ask your mother, Elizabeth.’ And when 
I ask mother, she will say, ‘Ask your father, 
Elizabeth.’ And there I shall be ‘Elizabethed’ 
from one to the other like a weaver’s shuttle, 
until at last they go to the study to talk it over 
and presently I shall hear the outcome.” 

Miss Minturne smiled lovingly into Betty’s 
bright, laughing face. 

“ I did n’t know you were such a weighty 
subject. Well, telephone to me. You should 
go home right after luncheon and get your 
things together.” 

Naturally, Betty was dying to ask where 
they were going, but with the courtesy that 


JUST AS LOIS HAD SAID 91 

was instinctive she waited for Miss Minturne 
to volunteer the information. 

“Shall I take a trunk?” 

“Oh, no; only a small bag. That blue 
serge you have on will be just the thing for 
travelling, and a little dinner gown and your 
pretty white flannel will be enough.” 

“If my mother should want to write to me, 
where — what address shall I give her?” 

“That ’s so! You dear old home-body, of 
course your mother fll want to know.” Miss 
Minturne thought a moment. “ Really, Betty, 
I have n’t decided. I need a change, and I’m 
going to run around until I find it. I ’ll ex- 
plain to your father to-morrow morning.” 

“I suppose, then, ‘On the Wing’ will be 
the best address,” Betty laughed. 

Promptly at eight o’clock the next morning 
Doctor Baird and Betty, carrying her bag and 
umbrella, met Miss Minturne at the Thirty- 
fourth Street ferry. The Doctor and Miss 
Minturne shook hands cordially. 

“It ’s very good of you. Doctor Baird, to let 
me have Betty. I promise to take the best of 
care of her.” 

“During the past year we have had abun- 


92 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

dant proof of your ability to do that, Miss 
Minturne.’" The Doctor bowed. 

‘‘You are very kind, Doctor. But really, 
Betty has been taking care of me instead of I 
of her. You don’t know what a comfort and 
help that dear girl has been to me,” turning 
her eyes to Betty, who had wandered off to the 
news-stand and was vainly trying to decide on 
a magazine from among the fascinating and 
bewildering array. 

“Elizabeth has been very happy with you,” 
said the Doctor, rather helpless in conventional 
conversation. His life had been unusually 
free from the amenities of society, pure and 
simple. In Weston his conversation during 
his pastoral calls had always had the sustain- 
ing basis of church matters, in which every 
one was interested, momentarily, at least. 
“But allow me to purchase your ticket,” he 
added. As the happy thought occurred to 
him, he drew his long wallet from the inside 
pocket of his waistcoat. 

“Thank you very much, but I have a mile- 
age book. And besides, I — well, really. 
Doctor Baird, I have n’t determined where 
we are going. I have such perfect confidence 


JUST AS LOIS HAD SAID 


93 


in Betty that I ’ve been thinking of letting her 
decide/^ Miss Minturne showed, what was 
rather unusual with her, some embarrassment. 
‘'Would you object if we should get on the 
first train that ’s ready, and get out when we 
feel like it ? Betty can settle it when the con- 
ductor comes around. We ’ll stay on Long 
Island, so we won’t be far away. We’ll tele- 
phone or telegraph as soon as we arrive at — ” 

“Utopia?” supplied the Doctor. 

“Never fear, father,” said Betty, who had 
just come up, “Miss Minturne always lands 
somewhere, and if she leaves it to me. I’ll 
land her.” 

Miss Minturne listened smiling, for they 
always appreciated each other’s little jokes. 
Then she turned to the Doctor. 

“To tell the truth, I want to get away from 
thinking, so it positively hurts to try to decide 
where to go. I thought about it nearly all 
night, and I hated every spot the moment it 
came to my mind.” 

“Ah!” said the Doctor, earnestly. “I fear. 
Miss Minturne, you are sadly in need of 
rest. That state denotes a high nervous 
tension. I remember how sleepless I grew 


94 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

in trying to decide about coming to New 
York.” 

He was interrupted by the announcement 
that the train was ready. Kissing Betty and 
shaking hands with Miss Minturne, he watched 
them go off, Betty’s face full of interest and 
mischief over the mysterious journey. 

“What a relief to be going, going from that 
big, noisy city!” exclaimed Miss Minturne, 
as she sank into the seat, drawing a long sigh. 
Leaning back, she closed her eyes and was 
silent. 

Betty’s eyes were very tender as she tried 
to make Miss Minturne more comfortable. 
She slid her bag under her feet and pulled 
down the shade to protect her from the sun. 

Hearing the car door slam, she looked up 
and saw the conductor working his way 
slowly towards them. She glanced at Miss 
Minturne, who still lay back, not an eyelid 
moving. The conductor drew near. Betty 
looked at him, then back at Miss Minturne 
and at the mileage book in her hand. The 
conductor was now taking a ticket from the 
bronzed farmer across the aisle. Here he is I 
Still Miss Minturne gave no sign. Hastily 


95 


JUST AS LOIS HAD SAID 

but gently, Betty took the book from her hand. 
A smile came to Miss Minturne's lips, but she 
did not open her eyes. 

Betty thought rapidly. Then she named a 
station she knew, not many miles from her 
home, where she had driven with Mrs. Brooks 
and Jack and where they had found a delight- 
ful inn, situated picturesquely by the Sound. 

The conductor tore the necessary mileage 
slips from the books and passed on. Miss 
Minturne opened her eyes. “Thank you, 
child ! ’’ she said, reaching over and patting 
Betty’s hand. 

Betty took her hand and held it in her firm, 
loving grasp. Yet she smiled to herself. 
“ Lois was certainly right ! I did n’t know it 
took people this way. The poets don’t speak 
of a case like this ! Still, it must be hard for 
her to think of giving up all that beautiful 
work she is so much interested in, for of course 
Mr. Anstice won’t let her go on with her 
Studio of Design.” 

To eighteen-year-old Betty, staid gray- 
haired Mr. Anstice naturally did n’t weigh 
very heavily against the fascinating art. 

Not a word was spoken until they came to 


96 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

the end of their journey. The station was 
spick and span, surrounded by plots of fresh 
grass and beds of early spring flowers. 

Leaving the car, they stepped into a decrepit 
hack, drawn by a pair of lean gray horses. 
The driver, an old white-whiskered man, 
whose mahogany complexion and gnarled 
hands showed that a life of toil had preceded 
this leisurely occupation, drove them slowly 
to the inn. 

After dinner, as they sat by the water. Miss 
Minturne said suddenly: “We shall leave 
here to-morrow. It ’s too soothing. I need a 
counter-irritant. I am going to see my 
grandaunt in Westchester. She lives on our 
old homestead, Minturne Manor. You ’ll 
like it, Betty, for it ’s more than a hundred 
and fifty years old.” 

“Don’t you need rest. Miss Minturne, 
rather than a counter-irritant ? You’ve worked 
hard all winter, and now you feel it.” 

“You are right, dear, I am fagged out. By 
the way, Betty, have you ever noticed that our 
friends — you are doing it now — excuse our 
unevenness and irritability by saying that we 
are tired ? ” 


JUST AS LOIS HAD SAID 97 

“Well, I like uneven people,’’ protested 
Betty, loyally. 

“You are young enough to bear it, little 
sister, but as we grow older we won’t put up 
with it. We don’t like people who take things 
hard. It ’s taking too much of a liberty with 
our peace and comfort. Your quotation from 
Newman is right. ‘A cheerful heart, an even 
temper, sweetness, gentleness, and brightness 
of mind’ are worth everything.” 


X 

MINTURNE MANOR 

O N they pursued their journey, Miss 
Minturne having telephoned to Mrs. 
Baird and received permission to take 
Betty to her grandaunt’s. 

“What a life I am leading you!” she ex- 
claimed, as she dropped into a seat in the car 
at the Grand Central Station. 

“A dance. Miss Minturne!” replied Betty, 
with a saucy smile, adding, “and you know 
how I love to dance!” 

This time the railway station, which Betty 
could see from a distance, as they rounded a 
long curve, was a squat, attractive building 
of gray stucco, with a pleasant red roof wel- 
coming the coming guest. A carriage took 
them by a circuitous route, and at the top of a 
steep hill looking out over a beautiful ravine 
the driver halted. 

“ D’ ye see that hill over there ? ” he asked, 
pointing his whip with pride to the dim 


MINTURNE MANOR 


99 

horizon. ‘‘If it wa’ n’t for that hill we could 
see the Sound from this very spot.” 

“Yes?” said Miss Minturne, settling back 
and closing her eyes with determination. 

Betty giggled a little to herself, but leaned 
forward, for she had not lost those pleasant 
anticipations of the beauties of nature gratui- 
tously pointed out, and while her faith was 
unequal to removing the mountain between 
her and the Sound, yet the green hazy valley 
below, shot through with dazzling yellow 
roads and a gray winding stream, repaid her. 

Jogging along a broad road, overarched by 
oaks, locusts, and elms, and past the old stone 
mill, they alighted at a commanding house, 
built in the Dutch style, which stood in the 
centre of wide-spreading acres sparsely covered 
with grass and stubble. Magnificent trees, 
showing neglect, however, dotted the lawn, 
while the spring air and the warm early sun- 
shine brought out wistful odors of things 
planted long ago, which survived by the cour- 
tesy of nature alone, — box, lilacs, bayberry, 
and calycanthus. 

In response to the thunder of the immense 
brass eagle knocker, the heavy mahogany 


loo BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


door was swung back by a sour-faced old 
serving-man, and at once a high-pitched voice 
called out from somewhere inside : 

“Come in, come in, Isabelle! I saw you 
get out of that ramshackle old hack! What 
are the Minturnes coming to I ” 

A Boston terrier rushed at them, barking 
fiercely, then fawned on them in the friend- 
liest fashion, and a tiny King Charles spaniel 
bow-wowed in a way that made Betty say it 
sounded “like a woolly store dog” and take 
him up in her arms, where he snuggled down 
contentedly. 

“That ’s my grandaunt,” Miss Minturne 
said in a low voice, as they walked towards the 
room indicated by the servant. 

They were ushered into a drawing-room 
which, for size, Betty had not seen equalled 
even at ‘The Pines’ or at Miss Minturne’s 
home on Washington Square. 

Long, wide, and high-ceiled, it was carpeted 
with old Aubusson; the walls were a plain 
pale gray, against which were gracefully out- 
lined beautiful Belter rosewood chairs; while 
two sofas, covered with the same delightfully 
faded rose-colored damask, reposed at each 


MINTURNE MANOR 


lOI 


end of the room; rosewood tables and inlaid 
cabinets, the furniture for which the rich, 
before the sixties, forfeited their colonial and 
Revolutionary pieces, stood like pigmies on 
the rose-strewn carpet of this vast room. 

As they entered, Betty caught a glimpse of 
herself in a distant pier-glass, and this hand- 
some, yet cheerless room, gave her an odd feel- 
ing of separation from her own personality. 

At one end of the room Betty saw Miss 
Minturne’s granduncle and grandaunt. The 
old gentleman was tall, thin, and aristocratic, 
with a mild and pleasant face, his snowy 
Dundreary whiskers setting off a complexion 
that was as pink and delicate as a girl’s. At 
one side lay his Boston terrier, and the spaniel 
leaped at once from Betty’s arms and en- 
sconced himself at the other side. Betty sat 
down beside him when she had gone through 
the empty formality of an introduction to the 
old lady, for it was very soon evident that 
wherever she stood or sat remained space to 
Madame Minturne. 

Fascinated, however, Betty could not take 
her eyes from her, sitting there in the corner 
of the sofa, her back straight as a ramrod, a 


102 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


great Paisley shawl thrown over her knees 
and a chudder over her shoulders. Peering 
out from the midst of the handsome draperies 
was a tiny, withered brown face, with piercing 
eyes, surrounded by a large lace cap orna- 
mented with cherry-colored ribbons. 

“Well, you Ye here at last, Isabelle. I 
should like to know what brought you,’’ the 
old lady demanded imperiously, in a shrill 
treble, shaking a hitherto concealed ebony 
cane at her grandniece. “I have been asking 
you to come for six months or more.” 

“Grandaunt, you forget that I’m a very 
busy woman,” Miss Minturne reminded her. 

“You need n’t scream, Isabelle. I’m not 
deaf,” said the old lady. Then, with no effort 
to lower her own voice, she asked : 

“Who was that you brought with you ?” 

Miss Minturne said something about Betty 
helping her in her work. 

“A working girl!” She examined Betty 
curiously for a moment. 

The flamboyant ribbons bobbed closer to 
Miss Minturne, and Betty felt herself dwindle 
once more into an object without dimension, 
color, or form. Mr. Minturne, however, made 


MINTURNE MANOR 


103 

amends by smiling benignly and nodding his 
white head towards the dogs and telling Betty 
about their tricks. But evidently he annoyed 
his wife, for she bade him be quiet, whispering 
to Miss Minturne that he was a little childish. 

As Betty was now shut out of the conversa- 
tion, she had an excellent opportunity to look 
around her. That gave her exquisite pleasure, 
for Miss Minturne had told her that the house 
was more than a hundred and fifty years 
old, and had been a centre of Revolutionary 
history. 

In spite of its run-down condition and 
gloomy atmosphere, it had the charm of re- 
fined traditions, a background of past lives 
and histories that captivated Betty’s anti- 
quarian and historical spirit. It was spoken 
of as ‘‘The Great House,” she had discovered 
at the station. It stood in the centre of an 
estate of two hundred acres or more, with a 
far-reaching vista over the hilltops, and com- 
manded the valley like a fort. The high 
foundation wall and the massive square chim- 
neys accented its military aspect. 

Betty’s eyes travelled from the windows 
back to the room. The portraits on the walls 


104 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

were as awe-inspiring as the old lady; except 
one, which hung directly opposite the old 
man’s chair. It was the modern portrait of 
a young man, and after a close look Betty was 
sure she could understand why Mr. Minturne 
sat in front of that frank, handsome face. 

Even in the old gentleman’s wrinkled fore- 
head could still be traced the lines that made 
the young man’s head so distinguished; the 
square jaw and the lips, sunken yet firm, 
were reproduced spiritedly in the portrait. 
In the young face there was missing the mild- 
ness of the venerable man, and in the old one 
the vitality and spirit of the youth. Both 
were serious, though Betty fancied she saw 
repeated in the portrait — and its eyes seemed 
to look straight into hers — the pleasant 
whimsical smile that the old man turned on 
her whenever his wife made one of her char- 
acteristically sharp speeches. 

‘‘I see you are wondering who that hand- 
some young fellow is,” said Mr. Minturne, 
softly, gently stroking his Dundrearys. 

‘‘It’s a face to make one wonder that,” 
said Betty. “He looks so — so — ready.” 
She felt that this could not mean much to her 


MINTURNE MANOR 


105 

listener, but that had been the conclusion of 
her thoughts. There he stood, the man equal 
to any occasion, social or financial, military 
or diplomatic. 

“ He ’s our only grandson. He ’s in the diplo- 
matic service. He’s only twenty-five. That ’s 
young to have so much responsibility.” 

He gave a side glance at his wife, but seeing 
that there was no probability of their being 
interrupted, he went on: 

“He ’s coming home this summer. I wish 
he could be here while you are with us. He ’s 
been in Scotland lately, has a place there, 
sort of a shooting-box. But he ’s a true 
American,” he hastened to add. “He’s not 
one of those who find other countries more to 
his liking than his own.” He stopped and 
looked proudly into the open, pleasant face. 
“I wonder now,” he continued slowly, “why 
so many of our young lads nowadays have 
such square jaws.” 

“And square shoulders too,” Betty smiled. 
“But the jaws could n’t be tailor-made.” 

“Nor dentist-made,” supplemented the old 
gentleman, with a quiet chuckle in which 
Betty joined discreetly, with a quick glance 


io6 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


at Madame Minturne, who, fortunately, was 
talking in a high key. 

“I served all through the war,” he mused, 
‘‘and I don’t think many of us had such a 
fighting expression as he has.” He nodded 
towards the portrait. 

Betty looked critically at the picture. 

“But his eyes are so kind and laughing 
that at first one does n’t notice the awful 
determination of his mouth.” 

“You ’ve hit the nail on the head, my 
dear. ‘Awful determination’ expresses it ex- 
actly. He holds on like a bulldog.” 

“That ’s the only way to get through, these 
days,” said Betty, with a wise shake of her 
sunny head, her face full of sad wisdom, and 
feeling herself the contemporary of the man 
of threescore and ten, as there filed through 
her mind one venture and its failure, then 
another and another. 

Madame Minturne did not give Betty even 
a nod when she left the drawing-room for the 
night. Miss Minturne and her granduncle 
remained for an hour or so to play cribbage, 
for old Mr. Minturne had passed light- 
heartedly from “a youth of frolic to an old 


MINTURNE MANOR 


107 

age of cards.” Betty found a book and passed 
the remainder of the evening pleasantly enough. 

On going to her room, she threw herself 
into a chair, and with elbows on her knees, 
her chin sunk deep in her palms, began to 
think of her predicament, an ignored guest. 

“ I knocked, but you did n’t answer, so I 
came right in. Had to be careful, for my 
grandaunt can hear a pin drop,” whispered 
Miss Minturne, closing the door softly. In the 
moonlight she could see Betty’s downcast atti- 
tude. ‘‘It ’s my grandaunt, Betty, is n’t it ?” 

Betty sprang up and juggled the unobser- 
vant Miss Minturne into the easiest chair in 
the room. 

“Ye-e-s,” she acknowledged reluctantly. 
She drew a stool to Miss Minturne’s side. 
“Your aunt does n’t want me here because I 
am a ‘working girl,’ and she has ignored me 
completely.” 

“You mustn’t mind her, dear.” Miss 
Minturne spoke with the indifference of one 
whose mind was on her own troubles. “I 
confess that I ’m more than half afraid of her 
myself, but she ’s an interesting character, 
after all. On account of my Uncle Robert I 


io8 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


come to see her as often as I can. He loves 
cards, and I devote my evenings to playing 
with him. He ’s only a month older than 
grandaunt Ellen, but she insists that he ’s 
much older, and that he ’s growing childish. 
Pride has been her ruling passion, — pride of 
ancestry, of wealth, of position, of beauty, — 
and she has never forgiven me for going into 
‘trade,’ as she puts it. You ’re ‘in trade’ too, 
my dear, so you ’re snubbed ! ” 

Betty drew herself up. Why should she 
stay there only to be snubbed ? This question 
was on the end of her tongue, when Miss 
Minturne laughed guardedly. 

“Aunt Ellen will simply ignore you. She 
did me for a whole year after I went ‘into 
trade,’ ” she added easily. “If Cousin Lau- 
rence were only here ! He ’s splendid ! That ’s 
the word ! He ’s my ideal of a man. He has 
a lot of fun in him, too.” 

During a pause in the conversation there 
came from the next room a low monotone, as 
of some one reading. 

“Grandaunt evidently is not asleep yet. 
She has a companion to read to her from the 
Bible. It ’s always the Bible, and she makes 


MINTURNE MANOR 


109 

her continue the reading even when she drops 
off into a doze.” 

The monotonous drone stopped. Then 
they heard Madame Minturne’s shrill voice 
berating her companion. “There, I caught 
you. You stopped reading when you thought 
I was asleep. How often must I tell you, 
Manning, that I want you to keep right on, 
whether I am asleep or not!” 

Miss Minturne and Betty involuntarily 
smiled into each other’s eyes. Miss Min- 
turne perhaps a trifle cynically, while Betty’s 
face clouded with pity and concern for the 
unfortunate companion. 

“It won’t last much longer. She reads only 
until eleven. One thing, Betty,” laughed Miss 
Minturne, consolingly, “you have seen a 
grande dame,' high-tempered and imperious, 
penurious and inconsiderate, yet, after all, 
with the fascination of conscious power — 
the way one feels about Napoleon — and an 
old age no one could envy!” 

“She ’s certainly an interesting character,” 
admitted Betty, dubiously. The picture Miss 
Minturne presented failed to correspond with 
her ideas of the great ladies of the past. 


no BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


“Now enjoy my grandaunt/’ said Miss 
Minturne, genially, rising and kissing Betty 
good-night. 

“Miss Minturne certainly overrates my 
capacity for enjoyment!” said Betty to her- 
self as the door closed. 


XI 


BETTY MEETS YOUNG MR. MINTURNE 

W HILE Betty was dressing the next 
morning, she thought over the events 
of the day and evening before, and 
she wished from the bottom of her heart that 
she could pay for her dinner and be free from 
obligation to her unwilling hostess. 

“Why, that old lady is as bad as Miriam 
and Caroline were at ‘The Pines’!’’ she ex- 
claimed, brushing her hair so vigorously that 
the ivory brush was glittering with many 
golden spirals. 

Betty felt indeed as if she had returned to 
those days in the boarding-school where, un- 
known and poorly dressed, she had excited 
the same feeling of snobbishness in the minds 
of some of the rich girls. 

“Now it ’s a woman of eighty I Think of it, 
eighty! And because I’m a ‘working girl’!” 


1 12 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


Betty shook her head wonderingly, puzzled 
beyond the depth of her girlish understanding 
of human nature. Eighty, and not to see any 
more clearly than girls of sixteen ! 

While Mr. Minturne had been courteous 
and friendly, she felt that she would not be a 
guest until Mrs. Minturne had shown her 
ordinary civility. 

Betty could not deceive herself into believ- 
ing that old age was the cause of Madame 
Minturne’s ignoring her. She had shown 
plainly and unmistakably that she would dis- 
regard every business friend of that eccentric 
niece of hers, “who knew everybody,” Betty 
had heard her say the evening before. 

“Such a proud old lady!” said Betty, half 
aloud, her eyes still seeing the quaint old 
figure sitting stiffly erect on the great sofa, 
enveloped in its shawls, and the lace cap, 
decorated with cherry-colored ribbons, all 
awry. “So old!” 

She looked across the valley to where the 
sun was breaking through delicate pearly 
clouds above the hilltops, tipping them with 
red, and the whole countryside was wakening 
and stirring and flickering in the perfect June 


YOUNG MR. MINTURNE 


113 

morning. But Betty’s eyes were still on the 
old Madame. 

“I should think such old people would have 
more serious things to think about!” She 
felt that old age itself should be the cure for 
all levity and faults. 

She turned from the window, and with a last 
look into the mirror to see that her hair was 
neat and her belt in place, she walked down- 
stairs. 

Betty’s healthy young thoughts now began 
to turn to breakfast, yet she felt she could not 
eat another meal under this inhospitable roof. 
She was in a quandary. Miss Minturne had 
told her that her uncle and aunt always had 
their morning coffee and rolls in their own 
rooms, and as she was very tired she would 
follow their example, and that Betty should 
not wait for her. No one would miss her, 
thought Betty, and she decided at once that 
she ’d walk down to the cross-roads and find 
her breakfast at the tiny shop she had noticed 
there as they drove up to the manor-house. 

“What would my mother think if she knew 
that my hostess had not said good-night to 
me! If I were only like mother!” sighed 
8 


1 14 BETTY BAIRD^S GOLDEN YEAR 

Betty. “She says a lady can never be insulted. 
But I can’t fold my hands. I must fly off and 
do something when things are horrid.” 

Usually it could be said of Betty, as the im- 
pulsive colonial governor Burnet said of him- 
self: “I act first and think afterwards.” She 
walked briskly down the broad yellow road, 
lined with venerable trees, youthful looking 
in their budding foliage. 

“If she were n’t so old ! Well, I’ll just have 
to grin and bear it, as Jack says, only I think 
if it keeps up very long, I ’ll be like the Cheshire 
cats, — nothing but my grin will be left.” 

At the store she bought fresh rolls and a 
glass of milk and had a really “picknicky” 
breakfast. The shop was kept by a pleasant 
old country woman, who looked at Betty with 
unconcealed admiration and curiosity. 

“Have you a room here which you could 
rent me for the night ? ” asked Betty, abruptly. 

“Bless your heart, ain’t you the young lady 
I seen goin’ up to the great house yest’day ?” 

“Yes, but there is n’t room enough for 
me,” said Betty, impulsively, adding to herself, 
hotly: “No, not enough room to breathe in !” 

Betty’s indignation kindled anew at every 


YOUNG MR. MINTURNE 


115 

thought of remaining under Madame Min- 
turne’s roof, 

“I did n’t know as how they had so much 
company up there,” muttered the old woman, 
evidently puzzled at so many guests hav- 
ing passed her shop without being seen. 
“Must’ve come at night. But I didn’t 
hear ’em.” 

This reason was painfully unsatisfactory to 
the old gossip, but had to content her until her 
daughter, a maid at the manor, should come 
down at nightfall and tell all the news of the 
house. Betty was quite unconscious of her 
perplexity. 

“This has been a delicious breakfast,” she 
said, smiling down at the old shopwoman, 
bent with age and work, who was like a child 
by the tall girl’s side. “Please let me come 
to-night.” 

“O’ course, o’ course,” she replied. A bell 
above the door tinkled and a customer came in. 

As Betty went out, she almost stumbled over 
a little girl who was playing with a rag doll on 
the doorstep. She chatted with her for a few 
moments, then walked light-heartedly back 
towards the manor-house, her spirit keyed up 


ii6 BETTY BAIRD^S GOLDEN YEAR 


to its old blithesomeness by the bracing air, 
the songs of the early birds, the dainty break- 
fast, and by the relief that came with the 
knowledge that now she would no longer be 
obliged to tax an inhospitable hospitality. 

As she walked back, however, at times 
slowly, then more hurriedly to keep pace with 
her thoughts, there came suddenly the deciding 
light that so often comes quite unexpectedly 
after a long pursuit and with no apparent as- 
sociation with previous ideas. 

Why, she could not do this thing ! It would 
surely hurt Miss Minturne, who was kindness 
and goodness and lovableness itself. Oh, she 
would not hurt her for all the proud old ladies 
in the world. No, nor for all the proud young 
hearts in the world, either! It came to her 
forcefully that pride and resentment should 
give way before love. 

“Why, what has become of my Golden 
Rule?’^ asked Betty, smiling to herself, as a 
man might ask for his compass when lost in 
the woods. “I determined never, never to 
remember Mr. Webbie, and now — here ’s my 
first chance for a new start, and off I go 1 If I 
could only remember in time!’" 


YOUNG MR. MINTURNE 


117 


She hurried back to the old storekeeper and 
recalled her engagement of the room. She 
had paid for it in advance, but as the woman 
seemed very poor, Betty refused to take back 
the money. Her second thoughts were apt to 
be rather expensive ! 

Again she started for Minturne Manor, 
pausing at one place to pick up a forlorn little 
mongrel pup that looked as if it had never 
before been held tenderly in human arms. 

“I fear, puppy, that you and I will never be 
Noble Characters,’’ she said, smiling down 
brightly at the dog, who put out a paw and 
touched her arm, as delicately sympathetic as 
if he were a King Charles spaniel. “I ’ve 
wanted to be a Noble Character. I ’ve wanted 
to overcome resentment. But it ’s awfully 
hard, puppy, is n’t it?” 

The dog looked up into her laughing eyes 
with all the solemnity of pupdom, which knows 
a thing or two, especially that life is no laugh- 
ing matter, no matter what light-minded sunny- 
haired girls may think to the contrary. 

“I’ll confide this to you, puppy, I a 
Noble Character, at least for the remainder 
of the day, and I can now meet the lady of the 


ii8 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


manor — though she won’t know it — with 
proper dignity. It would be a pity if a truly 
Noble Character, even if only a temporary one, 
could n’t stand a little snubbing for a friend ! ” 

When she reached the entrance gate, no one 
was to be seen, and she stopped to survey the 
house. 

“Anyway,” she thought, with youthful in- 
consequence and pride, the Noble Character 
momentarily in eclipse, “ours is almost as 
handsome as this. And maybe this one has a 
mortgage on it, too ! ” 

The mere thought made her feel a sudden 
warmth. It would be impossible to be resent- 
ful towards people with a mortgage ! But the 
remembrance of what Miss Minturne had said 
about their wealth nipped that in the bud. 

“I’ll try not to be ‘beholden’ to them or to 
intrude on Madame,” she said, as she walked 
up the steps. She stopped a moment to ad- 
mire the exquisite old fan-lights. “And I ’ll 
try to enjoy it all !” 

Just then the dog slipped from her arms to 
bark wildly at the gardener, who was coming 
around the corner of the house. Betty made 
her way into the drawing-room, hoping that 


YOUNG MR. MINTURNE 


119 

Miss Minturne had come down, but found it 
deserted save by the sunbeams that played on 
the beautiful old carpet. She could not resist 
making a courtesy to the portraits, as she 
walked around, examining the quaint gowns 
of the ladies and the plum-colored coats and 
yellow or scarlet waistcoats of the men. 

Finally she came to the one opposite to 
which she had sat the evening before, — the 
portrait of the grandson. Madame Minturne’s 
discourtesy had so discolored things that 
Betty could not now see the portrait in the 
pleasing light she had when she talked about 
it with the loving grandfather. Now, as she 
looked at it, there came back to her a sentiment 
she had heard Madame Minturne express with 
great emphasis in her conversation with Miss 
Minturne: “I M be perfectly willing to be a 
Lady Jane Grey to be queen for a day.’’ 

‘‘Would you be willing to be beheaded to 
be king for just one day?” Betty demanded 
of the portrait, in an undertone. 

The frank blue eyes smiled reassuringly 
back into her dark ones. Even then Betty 
forgot the grandfather’s words: “My grand- 
son is a true American.” 


120 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


“I am not at all sure of you, young man,” 
she continued, smiling. ‘‘Oh, you Ye good 
looking, I ’ll grant that.” 

Betty turned to look out of the window. 
The blue eyes followed her. She looked back. 
“ But you have your grandmother’s high 
nose!” She found a sort of defiant pleasure 
in speaking aloud, for the room was still dom- 
inated by the spirit of Madame Minturne. 

Her hands were loosely clasped behind her 
back, and the sunbeams found congenial 
places to play hide-and-seek in her golden 
brown hair, making the halo that little Dottie 
had once called a “ hoop, like the lady’s in the 
picture,” as she pointed to the Madonna. 
And “Betty’s hoop” had become a playful 
household word in the Baird home. Indeed, 
this same hoop had caused a poetic youth, 
one of Jack’s Harvard chums, to liken her to 
Aurora. 

The morning being rather cool, Betty had 
put bn her simple white flannel dress, and in 
her belt she had stuck a bunch of crimson 
roses. If the poetic Junior had been there he, 
no doubt, would have said some sophomoric 
thing about “rosy Aurora,” for her face was 


YOUNG MR. MINTURNE 


I2I 


bright and beautiful and glowing with perfect 
health. She stood before the portrait for some 
time, waiting for Miss Minturne. Then she 
gave it a last look, saying in a low voice, but 
with a distinctness that her pent-up feelings 
gave: 

“Snob!’^ 

This was her final decision regarding the 
perplexing face, and she turned away, deter- 
mined not to be pleased with a Minturne; 
turned away so abruptly that she precipitated 
herself almost into’ the arms of — 

“Why!’’ gasped Betty, springing back in 
confusion, looking from the man into whose 
arms she had nearly fallen to the portrait. 

“No, I did n’t step down from my frame,” 
he said courteously, yet smiling like a man 
who enjoyed a joke. “Though, really, now, 
don’t you think that cruel word might produce 
just such a result?” 

“ Oh 1 ” exclaimed Betty, the blood crimson- 
ing her face. “ Pardon me, I did >n’t^know — ” 
She could not finish the sentence, and stood 
quiet, hoping for some way out pf the predica- 
ment. Then, with a flash, despite her feeling 
of awkwardness, she said : 


122 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


“I don’t feel that even that word would 
justify your — haunting any one.” 

‘‘No?” queried the stranger, as if consid- 
ering an abstruse problem. Young Mr. Min- 
turne did not continue, for Betty had walked 
towards the window, contriving, while listen- 
ing courteously, to put the damper of finality 
on the conversation simply by a few steps. 

There was silence. Betty gazed out of the 
window and tried to think, and the youthful 
diplomat discovered that his tact was not, in 
this emergency, up to its mark. 

“So this is the Scion!” thought Betty. 

As all her friends knew, Betty loved a co- 
incidence, and reserved certain pages in her 
commonplace book for those from her own 
life or from the lives of others that she knew 
were authentic. And here was a coincidence 
that seemed to her to outrank any in the 
marble-covered book. Betty stared unsee- 
ingly into the garden. Mr. Minturne remained 
standing where she had left him, gazing fatu- 
ously at his own portrait. 

“Why!” It was Miss Minturne’s blessed 
voice. “ Why !” she repeated, with inspiration 
and expiration of surprise, as she hastened 


YOUNG MR. MINTURNE 123 

down the length of the room, “it ’s Laurence 
Minturne himself!’’ 

Minturne swung around at the sound of her 
voice. 

“Isabelle!” 

He hurried forward and grasped her hands 
in his. 

“The Scion loves Miss Minturne. I can tell 
that by his voice,” said Betty to herself, and 
the Scion went up some pegs in her estimation. 

“Why, what is Betty Baird doing standing 
with her back to the room!” exclaimed Miss 
Minturne. “ Is n’t this delightful ! Laurence 
has stolen a march on us. Here he is. And 
here am 1 . Such a pleasant coincidence!” 
Miss Minturne hurried on. 

She stepped to the sofa and pulled Betty 
down beside her. Characteristically, Miss 
Minturne was so wholly charmed with this 
meeting with a cousin she admired, that she 
did not at once notice any constraint in Betty 
or Mr. Minturne. 

When they were seated, Minturne sat op- 
posite his portrait; though it seemed to exert 
an unpleasant influence over him, it attracted 
him against his will, to study it, to see just 


124 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

why this stranger should label it as she 
had. 

Miss Minturne talked animatedly with her 
cousin, who got up abruptly and turned his 
back on the portrait, leaning against the 
mantlepiece and looking down at them. This 
gave Betty time to think out a plan for 
luncheon. She decided to go out for a walk 
and get lost. No, that would not do, for Miss 
Minturne would be worried. Oh, she had an 
engagement (to lunch with the old woman 
down the road) ! As she heard Madame 
Minturne coming downstairs, Betty explained 
rather incoherently to Miss Minturne that she 
would not be back for luncheon, and slipped 
from the house. 


XII 

A GAY LUNCHEON IN THE LITTLE SHOP 

B etty chatted gayly with the old woman 
) in the little shop, while she sat in a 
Windsor chair at a table by a window 
overlooking the deep valley which the winding 
river had cut for itself. The shop was perched 
on the very edge of the precipitous hill, sus- 
pended dizzily, like a bird-cage in a mass of 
green. 

The day was cool yet balmy, and all sorts of 
green things were shooting up. It was all 
young and all blithe, and the blue sky bent 
over the earth in a beneficent arch. The trees 
stood silent, yet it seemed to Betty that their 
silence was voluntary, a restful reserve that 
the babbling run might well imitate. 

The shopkeeper’s grandchild, forefinger in 
mouth, came hesitatingly into the room. Betty 
caught her, and with merry ado tied a bright 
ribbon on her hair and a tiny one around the 


126 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


thick grimy neck of Gwendolin, the rag doll 
she held in her arms. This last favor quite 
won the child, through her maternal pride, and 
she began to talk freely. By the time luncheon 
was ready, Betty and her small friend were 
exchanging confidences on dolls, and Betty 
insisted on her eating luncheon with her, that 
their conversation might continue without inter- 
ruption. 

While they were enjoying the hot biscuits, 
which had been brought in nestling in snowy 
napkins, the savory smells of baking floated in 
from the back room. The pup, which had 
rushed from his home as Betty passed and 
followed her, barking and capering, to the 
shop, now had his share in the luncheon. 
Through the open window came the voices of 
a multitude of birds, singing cheerily as they 
built their new homes in the surrounding trees. 
Above them all she could hear the glorious 
notes of two wood thrushes from a small pine 
tree across the road. 

Betty’s cheeks glowed in the fresh air that 
swept into the window from across the hills 
and deep ravines. “Isn’t it beautiful!” she 
exclaimed, turning to the storekeeper. 


A GAY LUNCHEON 


127 

“Ain’t it!” she agreed. “An’ them wood 
robins do sing so sweet!” 

She fingered Betty’s flannel dress curiously, 
and soon they grew to such intimacy that she 
asked Betty its price and all the secrets of its 
workmanship. 

“How nice really human people are!” 
thought Betty, happily. “Now I must go,” 
she said, looking at the clock, and finding that 
the manor-house luncheon hour had passed. 
“I ’ve had a splendid time.” 

She hurried away with the dog at her heels. 
The poor mongrel wanted to play, and frisked 
and danced until she picked up a stick and 
threw it far down the road, where he put after it 
with a wild rush, bringing it back and laying it 
at her feet, and begging with eyes and wagging 
tail and wriggling body for another chance. 

When she reached the house, she waved him 
homeward, and walked up the pathway and 
sank down on the low steps. She heard 
voices in the drawing-room, and decided to 
wait outside until Miss Minturne should see 
her. She had carried the third volume of 
Lockhart’s “Life of Sir Walter Scott” with 
her, and she began to read it. 


128 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


Feeling something tug at her dress, she 
found that the pup had come back and was 
lying at her side, having selected, with fine 
discrimination, the soft hem of her white skirt. 
She closed her book and commenced patting 
him, for she could not fix her mind on the 
wonderful “Life.” The memory of a startling 
page of her own life possessed her. Try as she 
would, she could not throw off the incident of 
the portrait. With a girl’s inconsequence, she 
felt incensed at young Mr. Minturne ; though 
what he had done she could not, in all fair- 
ness, put into words that would soothe the 
memory of her own rudeness. She knew 
that his only offence was in being (quite 
blamelessly, of course !) Madame Minturne’s 
grandson. 

Over against this damaging relationship 
there flashed before her his courtesy and fine 
bearing in a ridiculous predicament. With a 
mirthless smile, Betty said to herself that she 
could well believe that he was not in the habit 
of finding girls standing before his portrait and 
addressing it with an explosive expletive. 

Betty knew that if it had been a girl she 
would have stayed through thick and thin to 


A GAY LUNCHEON 


1 29 

apologize; but to apologize to a young, self- 
possessed, elegant man of the world, Madame 
Minturne’s grandson — ! 

At the idea of meeting him again her cheeks 
tingled with mortification. 

‘‘Now I’ll have to go home. Miss Minturne 
or not ! How ephemeral my Noble Character 
has been !” 

Betty, at a loss, sighed with a smile that was 
a mixture of rue and humor. The absurdity 
of the situation appealed to her in spite of 
everything. 

Just then young Mr. Minturne came out on 
the porch and stood looking quizzically down 
at Betty and the dog. Betty could not restrain 
a look of dismay. 

“I see you have made an interesting ac- 
quaintance,” observed Minturne, assuming a 
casual air and glancing from Betty to the dog. 

The dog returned his look unblinkingly, 
then, with unexpected vivacity, jumped to Mr. 
Minturne’s feet and begged to be taken up. 

“Why, what a cur you are to treat a lady 
so ! You have execrable taste,” he declared. 

“I own up that I feel a little disappointed 
at his treatment,” smiled back Betty, with an 
9 


130 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

effort. ‘‘When I graduated, a forlorn little 
dog came up on the stage and sat on my train, 
my first train, while I was saying my most 
affecting farewell words.” 

“You knew the wretch?” asked Minturne, 
laughing heartily at the story. 

“Oh, yes. He always followed me when 
we took our constitutionals.” 

“ Oh, he ’s going to pass it over ! How fine ! ” 
she thought. Then she felt her position inde- 
fensible and uncourageous. 

“Perhaps I should apologize for intruding,” 
said Minturne. 

“And I must apologize,” began Betty, 
quickly, and her unpremeditated apology 
slipped out. “I hope you did n’t mind being 
called a — I mean — I really did n’t mean 
that quite — I was just in a bad humor.” 

It did Betty good to hear Minturne’s laugh. 
She joined in, and in that happy, appreciative 
laugh all embarrassment was lost. His wholly 
unegotistic manner of putting aside something 
that had worried her, even though it had 
touched his pride, and his easy way of making 
a joke of it, reconciled Betty to even Madame 
Minturne’s grandson. 


A GAY LUNCHEON 


131 

While they were talking, Miss Minturne 
came out and proposed a horseback ride, as 
the old people had gone upstairs for their 
afternoon nap. Betty asked to be excused, 
for she wanted to write to Lois. 

“Oh, Lois, I have so much to tell you [she 
wrote]. “I am writing with that perfectly 
gorgeous fountain pen Miss Minturne gave 
me at Christmas, sitting on a rock under a 
willow that leans sentimentally over a real 
brook, just like those in pictures. I can see 
across the valley, where there is a back- 
ground of gray mist that, with the greens and 
yellows of the trees, makes it look like some of 
the old tapestries Miss Minturne has at the 
Studio. Now if Miss Minturne and the Scion 
would only ride through the valley on horse- 
back, — they ’ve just gone out on two splendid 
horses ; the Scion is superb on horseback, — 
it would make me think — far-fetched ! — of 
the Canterbuiy Pilgrimage. 

“I described everything in my letter to my 
mother, the house, — it’s a love of a place, — 
Mr. Minturne and Madame, and how I 
almost threw myself into the Scion’s arms. 
You know I brought the third volume of 
Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter, — you ought 
to remember, for you hooted at me for doing 
it, — and as I sat reading it on the portico, 


132 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

with the Madame’s shrill voice mingling with 
Sir Walter’s knightly words, young Mr. Min- 
turne came out for a breath of air, which his 
grandmother is deathly afraid of. He apolo- 
gized for his intrusion, and I kindly forgave 
him for coming out on his own doorstep ! 
Then he said something about being seated. 
It was, so far as I could make out, — for I was 
not wholly at my ease, — apologetic, too. 
Diplomatic manners, I suppose ! Not at all 
like Jack, who sinks down gladly, without 
invitation or compunction, and rises painfully 
and reluctantly when at last politeness com- 
pels him. And I apologized for ‘snob,’ and 
he was just splendid about it. But I’ll tell 
you everything when I see you. 

“Oh, Lois, he loves Scott as much as I do. 
He knows every inch of Scotland ! We had a 
glorious conversation. I’ve never heard any 
one talk as he did. I told him about the little 
boy who came into the ‘Silver Lining Library’ 
and asked me for ‘The Lay of the Last Min- 
strel Show, by Scott.’ You should have heard 
him laugh. He ’s one of those who can laugh 
heartily over a silly little thing, and that makes 
you feel so easy and comradely. Well, some- 
how, do you know, Lois, I felt Madame’s 
black eyes piercing my vertebrae just then. 
I turned around, and there she was, peeking 
out of the window at us ! 


A GAY LUNCHEON 


133 

“Now I’m going out for a walk, then I’ll 
come back and finish this. 

“I ’ve just come back from the little shop 
and I ’m eating some splendiferous cookies I 
found there. 

“You should have heard the way Madame 
Minturne said, when I was introduced to her, 
‘A working girl !’ But I am glad I am a work- 
ing girl. I think so often about Lucy Lar- 
com’s book, where she tells of those splendid 
Lowell girls who fifty years ago worked in the 
factories there in order to send their brothers 
to college. And they did it! Oh, why can’t 
I help about our mortgage ! 

“To-morrow we ’re going home, and I ’m 
glad. But I do hate to think of the endless 
commuting — I would n’t have mother know 
that for the world I Yet I hate the thought 
that I hate it more than I hate it, for it seems 
ungrateful to complain when one is as well off 
as I am. However, the atmosphere here is 
especially salubrious for grievances ! 

“By the way, the Scion is an old friend of 
the Kings, and he says he believes he will visit 
them this summer. So you will meet him!” 


XIII 


THE FIRE 

B ETTY’S eyes flew open and in an 
instant she was wide awake. She did 
not know why. She was not conscious 
of having heard anything. Yet she had been 
sleeping soundly, and all at once she was fully 
awake. She lay still, listening intently. She 
could not hear a sound except the whir and 
clank of the manor windmill, the stamping of 
the horses in the stable, and the distant baying 
of a hound. 

Through the broad windows at her right 
she could dimly make out the tall trees swaying 
gently in the light breeze. She strained her 
eyes into the dark corners of her room, but 
could see nothing. 

“I’m growing nervous,” she thought. She 
smiled to herself at repeating the familiar 
formula, for in her young healthy life she 
thought of “nerves” about as older people do 
of second childhood. 


THE FIRE 


135 


Feeling wide awake, however, she decided 
that a change might enable her to get to sleep 
more quickly, so she got out of bed and knelt 
at the broad sill of the low window, looking 
out into the peaceful night and at the friendly 
stars twinkling overhead. 

Suddenly it seemed to her that she detected 
the faint smell of burning. She leaned out of 
the window and listened intently. She thought 
she could hear a faint crackling in the direction 
of the stable. With every nerve on edge, she 
turned towards it. Then she noticed that 
the horses were stamping excitedly. Staring 
fixedly at one of the stable windows, she saw 
a flickering light, evidently from a fire. Her 
heart jumped, and a lump came to her throat. 

‘‘Oh, those beautiful horses!’’ she cried 
aloud. She sprang to her feet, hurried into her 
kimono and slippers, and ran to Miss Min- 
turne’s room, and knocked at the door gently 
but decidedly. 

Miss Minturne opened the door at once. 

“Don’t be frightened. Miss Minturne,” 
said Betty, with forced calm, “but I fear the 
stable is on fire.” 

“We must keep it from the old people,” 


136 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

returned Miss Minturne in an agitated whis- 
per. “Run and waken the servants and Fll 
call Cousin Laurence.’’ 

Betty flew upstairs and aroused the ser- 
vants, then down again to the first floor. Go- 
ing through the dining-room, to get out by the 
side door, she heard the clock in the hall 
chime two. As she ran across the lawn to the 
fence that divided it from the garden, the 
flames broke through the upper windows of 
the stable. 

Just then the rear door of the house was 
flung open, and Minturne dashed out, closely 
followed by the servants. 

“In line to pass buckets!” he shouted. 

Instantly Miss Minturne, Betty, the coach- 
man, the butler, the cook, and the housemaids 
formed a line, passing the buckets from the 
pump to the stable and back again. 

“ Keep it up 1 I ’ll get the horses out,” 
called Minturne. 

Betty’s heart gave a leap, then stood still. 
She saw him dash to the stable door, tear it 
open, spring in and close it after him. 

It seemed ages before it was hurled back 
and Minturne came out, leading one of the 


THE FIRE 


137 


terrified carriage horses, which he had blind- 
folded with a blanket. Slamming the door be- 
hind him, he trotted the horse swiftly around 
to the front of the house and tied him to a 
tree. Back to the stable he ran and brought 
out the others, one by one. 

Then the roof fell in with a roar, and the 
heat grew intolerable. The bucket passers 
were driven back. 

‘‘The wind's carrying sparks over on the 
house. We '11 have to throw water on the 
roof," cried Minturne. 

He quickly planted the ladder against the 
porch and clambered up. 

“Stand on the ladder, Pat, and hand up the 
buckets. If we only had some help!" he ex- 
claimed, pulling up a bucket. 

Without waiting to hear more, Betty gath- 
ered up her kimono and ran down the walk to 
the gate. She recalled instantly the alarm 
box at the cross-roads, just beyond the old 
woman's shop. 

Down the highway she flew, her hair stream 
ing out behind her in the rising wind ; her lithe 
figure bore up splendidly against its force; 
her light steps fell evenly on the clay road. 


138 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Running was no new thing to Betty. All her 
life she had loved it, and battling with the 
wind. 

In her excitement she cried “Fire! Fire!’’ 
though there was no one to hear. There were 
few stars to be seen, and the moon was often 
obscured by clouds. 

“Fire! Fire!” she cried, over and over, 
between panting breaths ; and vibrating 
through the half articulate cry was the thought 
of Minturne. What a masterful man ! 

In a few minutes she reached the little shop ; 
the old woman’s head bobbed out of an upper 
window. 

“What ’s on fire ?” she screamed. 

“The stable!” cried Betty, not slackening 
her speed. 

“How did it get afire?” she shrieked after 
her, leaning far out on the window-sill. 

Betty did not stop. A moment more and 
she found herself at the alarm box. Without 
hesitation she broke in the glass door with 
her bare hand and gave the hook a vigorous 
jerk. Instantly she heard the awesome clang 
of the great bell in the village tower. 

Feeling, then, the strain of her long run, she 


WHY, I THOUGHT YOU WAS A GHOST ! ” SHE EXCLAIMED 

Page 139 




r 


THE FIRE 


139 


sank down trembling by the roadside. Soon 
she heard the rapid beating of a gong and the 
shrill tooting of a whistle, and a fire engine 
and a hose-cart thundered by, the powerful 
gray horses straining against their collars as 
they plunged along, the engine shooting a 
stream of sparks high into the air. 

‘‘I must go back to the house. Maybe I 
can help,’’ she said aloud. 

She stood up, then with a little cry of pain 
she sank back to the ground. Her slippers 
were gone, and her feet sadly cut and bruised. 
In the excitement she had not noticed it before. 

With great difficulty she hobbled to the old 
woman’s shop. There was a light in the front 
room, for the son had gone to help at the fire, 
and his mother was sitting by the window, 
waiting for his return with the news. 

‘‘Why, I thought you was a ghost!” she 
exclaimed, starting from her chair as Betty 
came up. “Come in, child. You done your 
duty, all right. Why, what a mercy does this 
mean ? ” she cried, as she saw Betty’s bleeding 
hand and feet. 

An hour later the fire engine and the hose- 
cart jogged past; then the son came back. 


140 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


The fire was out, the old manor-house was 
safe. Betty had been missed, and they were 
searching for her. 

“Here comes Master Laurence now,’^ said 
the son. “Mr. Scarborough has fetched him 
in his automobile.” 

Minturne leaped out and came to the door 
of the shop. Betty tried to hurry forward to 
meet him. The old woman had lent her her 
number seven slippers, but the bandages 
which the good soul had wound around her 
lacerated feet made the size a matter of little 
consequence. 

As Betty stood in the doorway, the light 
from the bracket lamp behind her cast fan- 
tastic shadows on the furrowed clay road out- 
side; with her blue kimono rumpled and 
torn, her beautiful hair falling down her back 
in a tangled mass and caught with leaf and 
brier, and the big carpet slippers projecting 
from beneath her short gown, she made a 
picture that strangely mingled the humorous 
with the pathetic. She stood there, unable to 
speak, but immensely relieved to learn from 
the son that “the ingine arrove in the nick o’ 
time” to save the house. 


THE FIRE 


141 

Minturne hastened to her, and took her un- 
injured hand in both of his. 

“ How can I thank you ! How can I thank 
you!’^ he repeated. 

“ If I had n’t been so worried about the 
house, I ’d have had only an exciting adven- 
ture,” said Betty, withdrawing her hand from 
his and leaning against the door-frame. She 
was beginning to feel very weak. 

“I did n’t do a thing but run — and smash 
a little,” she added, smiling. “And I like to 
do both, at times ! ” 

“You ran and smashed to good purpose 
to-night,” said Minturne, warmly, joining 
absently in Betty’s joke. “It was a mighty 
plucky thing, and I can never thank you 
enough.” 

Betty was about to answer, when the two 
boat-like slippers caught her eyes and she 
began to laugh. Then she reeled. Minturne 
caught her in his arms, calling for water. 

The shopkeeper came running with a tin 
cup of water and dashed it into her face. In 
a moment Betty was herself. It was nothing 
more than faintness from fatigue. 

In spite of her protests, Minturne picked 


142 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

her up and carried her to the car, Mr. Scar- 
borough and the old woman helping to tuck 
her in among the soft lap-robes. 

As they were speeding along, Betty asked 
in a faint voice, yet with a note of her old- 
time mischievousness running through it : 

“Mr. Minturne, will you make an affadavit 
that I fainted ? ” 

Minturne turned with a look of wonder. He 
thought she was feverish from the excitement. 

“Oh, I’m in my right mind,” she affirmed. 
“My schoolmate, Lois Byrd, and I used to 
want to faint. She said she thought it was so 
‘ladylike.’ She had a famous aunt who 
always fainted at the sight of a mouse. But 
we could never manage it. Now I’ve gone 
and done it!” 

Minturne laughed. 

“The heroine — what ’s her name ? — of 
‘ The Children of the Abbey ’ could n’t have 
done it more completely. I ’ll back you up 
in any boast you make.” 

“Thank you. I ’ve learned, though, that 
faints, like a good many other things, can 
come a moment too late. I don’t feel the 
rapture I would have felt at fourteen.” 


THE FIRE 


143 


They laughed at the nonsense. Minturne 
was relieved to see her in such good spirits, 
while Betty talked to make light of the incident. 

As they were nearing the house, they went 
very slowly. A stream of people was return- 
ing from the fire, having remained until the 
last ember had died out. 

Silence followed their words. There was 
the. sound of the brook that ran, moonlight- 
white, through the darkling trees and cool 
reedy passes, its bright rhythm staccatoing 
against the low indefinable whir of insects. 

Dawn was breaking in the east, and in the 
half light Minturne’s face, with its smoky 
marks, its stern strong lines, appeared to 
Betty to belong to a different age, far-off and 
strange. 

The silence was not broken again, except 
by Minturne’s and Mr. Scarborough’s ques- 
tions as to how she felt, until they reached the 
manor, when Miss Minturne took Betty off to 
rest. 


XIV 

MISS JANE ARRIVES 

B etty had just attributed a new mood 
to their dear old home. “ It 's purring ! ” 
“Yes/’ she said, looking lovingly at 
the Revolutionary house, lying low on the 
fresh green grass, a southerly breeze rippling 
its vines, “it makes me think of a big white 
cat basking in the sunlight. It ’s the picture 
of comfort.” 

Mrs. Baird demurred at her figure. 

“It always seems rather selfish for a cat to 
take the softest and warmest spot. This dear 
old house is generous, and would take every 
one under its wing. It ’s more like a motherly 
white hen.” 

“I agree with you, Mrs. Baird,” Lois put 
in. “And Betty and I are happy chicks to 
be under its wing. And Edwyna, too,” 
she added, looking over to the side terrace 
where “the set” was playing “Little Sally 


MISS JANE ARRIVES 145 

Waters’’ and “London Bridge is Breaking 
Down.” 

Their pleasant, lazy snatches of conversation 
were broken into by Jack’s familiar whistle, 
followed by a rollicking chantey, in the chorus 
of which a number of stentorian voices joined. 

Betty shaded her eyes and looked expect- 
antly at the launch, which was steaming 
rapidly towards their little dock. 

“There are Jack, Dunny, and — yes, it is 
Mr. Minturne ! ” she said. She glanced around 
hastily to see if things were presentable. 

Mr. Minturne was visiting the Kings, and 
had called several times at “ Boxwood,” but he 
was still “company” there, so Betty rejoiced 
that he had not found her with the big ging- 
ham apron, in which she “helped with the 
luncheon dishes,” covering her pretty blue 
dress. This apron was a familiar sight to 
Jack, who had more than once volunteered 
to don it and take Betty’s place. 

Lois hastily smoothed invisible creases out 
of her white linen that was not only exquisitely 
dainty but superlatively becoming, as Dun- 
more Lane’s eyes were quick to perceive. 

“I ’ve just come from the city,” said Min- 


146 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

turne, as they came up, fanning themselves 
with their Panamas, “and this makes me wish 
I M never have to see a city again.’’ 

“It ’s a living sort of place, is n’t it? All 
day I have felt like stroking it,” said Betty, 
and she told him about their discussion of its 
mood. 

“ It ’s a great contrast to the place I have 
come from, for here you see something charm- 
ing everywhere you look,” Minturne declared. 
“I took luncheon with friends who have gone 
to housekeeping in an apartment uptown. 
The street is good enough, but their dining- 
room is in the rear, and poor Peggy is training 
herself in the art of not seeing. She has all 
her dining-room chairs standing with their 
backs towards the windows. She can’t shut 
out the view with curtains, for she needs the 
light.” 

“It takes experience and talent to ‘see New 
York,’ ” said Mrs. Baird, smilingly. “But I 
must say that the churches there seem more 
beautiful than anywhere else. Perhaps it ’s 
the contrast.” 

“There ’s another thing about the city that 
never loses its interest to me, and that ’s the 


MISS JANE ARRIVES 147 

patches of sky at the end of the long ave- 
nues, especially just after sunset. By the way, 
Miss Baird,’’ he added slyly, turning to Betty, 
‘"in Scotland, where your eagles live, it ’s all 
beautiful.” 

Of course this hit set them all off. 

“Now really, honestly, Mr. Minturne, did 
you ever see my eagles in Scotland ?” pleaded 
Betty, entering into the joke. 

“Often!” Minturne assured her. “And 
you ’d enjoy the wild tales the people tell there, 
about werewolves and witches. America’s 
badly off in the matter of folk-lore.” 

“Oh, but you forget our Indian tales 1 And 
as to witches, we ’ve had them,” protested 
Betty, stoutly. “We won’t have Salem run 
down that way, will we, mother? All our 
ancestors came from there.” 

“Ah! That accounts for your witchery. 
Mistress Betty ! ” laughed Minturne, bowing. 

Betty gave him a derisive smile. 

“Witch the same are a werry proper re- 
mark,” punned Jack. “And there are others, 
aren’t there, Dunny, old man?” he added, 
bowing to Lois. 

“Well, I should say so!” agreed Dunny, 


148 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

with fervor. “Come on, Lois, I want to give 
Merrylegs some sugar, and I need help.’’ 

Dunny’s love for the pony had lately been 
waxing stronger and stronger, if one could 
judge from the amount of sugar he fed him, 
and Lois’s encouragement of his affection was 
not lost on Betty. And when it was n’t the 
pony, it was something else. They had 
grown into the habit of going off together “to 
see something” — Betty thought the thing 
usually rather indefinite — some distance from 
the others. 

“Hello! Here comes Pharaoh’s chariot!” 
cried Jack, looking down the road. An old 
hack rattled up to the gate. “Company com- 
ing, Betty ? ” he asked, with a quizzical smile, 
for this particular hack was the “standing” 
joke — its wheels tended to immobility — of 
the village. 

Betty and her mother looked surprised. 
“I can’t imagine who it is,” said Mrs. Baird, 
in a low voice, as Betty sprang up. “No one 
has written.” 

The hack door flew back on its creaking 
hinges. The individual within could not be 
seen, but an immense old-fashioned bandbox 


149 


MISS JANE ARRIVES 

covered with landscape paper, bundles of all 
sizes and shapes wrapped in newspapers, a 
capacious market-basket, a huge brownish 
umbrella, and a carpetbag that bloomed like 
a bed of peonies, were ejected one after an- 
other from the ancient vehicle. 

Then a pair of prunella gaiters, overtopped 
by some inches of white stockings, started 
nimbly down the steps of the hack. At the 
sight of the familiar prunellas Betty sped down 
to the gate, calling back over her shoulder : 

“Mother ! Mother ! It ’s dear Miss Jane !” 

Mrs. Baird hurried after her, her face alight 
with surprise and welcome. 

The eruption of parcels had sent Jack roll- 
ing with laughter on the grass, but at Betty’s 
joyful cry he straightened up hastily and said 
to Minturne: 

“I guess I put my foot in it that time!” 

Minturne’s eyes, however, were following 
Betty, and with an “I think we can help out 
there,” he strode towards the group at the 
gate, where Betty was hugging Miss Jane, 
while Mrs. Baird, having quietly paid the 
driver, began to disentangle her from the 
luggage that strewed her path. 


150 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

“Let me take that, please, Mrs. Baird!” 
called out Minturne, springing forward as she 
stooped for a bundle. 

Betty took the huge landscape bandbox 
from her mother and demurely handed it to 
the elegant diplomat. 

“Oh, this is a mere trifle,” he said blandly, 
as he took it. “Give me some more.” 

“Thank you!” replied Betty. “But first 
you must meet one of my oldest and dearest 
friends, Miss Hufnagel, of Weston, Pennsyl- 
vania. Miss Jane, this is Mr. Minturne.” 

Mr. Minturne bowed low over his bandbox 
while Miss Jane studied him with the unblink- 
ing curiosity of a countrywoman who has 
come to the city determined to see all the sights. 
Then she extended a long mittened hand to 
him. 

“Pleased to meet ye! But what might the 
young man’s name be, Betty? I’m gettin’ a 
leetle deef.” She leaned forward with her 
hand behind her ear. 

“Mr. Minturne !” Betty called out. 

“Huh ! Never heerd no sich name before 1” 
muttered Miss Jane, and she walked briskly 
towards the house. 


MISS JANE ARRIVES 151 

‘‘Betty, w’y ain’t you wrote me about this 
perlite young man? You cert’n’y wrote 
enough about Brooks,” demanded Miss Jane 
in her sharp voice, as they reached the porch. 

Betty instinctively turned towards Min- 
turne, to see whether he had heard. He was 
looking straight at her, and met her stolen 
glance with a look that was an unstudied 
admixture of reproach with amusement. 

“I’m a blameless listener, but I have the 
reward of the unscrupulous one,” he said, in 
answer tq Betty’s half-startled smile. 

Betty arched her eyebrows sceptically, then 
turned to Miss Jane, though with consider- 
ably heightened color. What would Mr. 
Minturne think? Miss Jane had spoken as 
though Jack had filled her letters, and what 
different feelings — She heard Miss Jane 
speaking. 

“Oh, I beg your pardon. Miss Jane. What 
were you saying ? ” she asked hurriedly. 

Miss Jane did not answer, but scanned her 
face questioningly. 

“Humph!” 

“What, Miss Jane?” Betty tried to fasten 
her mind on the dear old friend. 


152 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

‘‘I said ‘Humph!’ ” 

Betty had a sense that the world had begun 
to whirl most unaccountably, if Miss Jane 
saw something she did n’t see, and — yes, she 
did wish Miss Jane hadn’t said that about 
dear old Jack. How suddenly he had become 
“dear old Jack” she did not take time to 
think. 

Jack was presented in due form and re- 
ceived a more cordial greeting, as Miss Jane 
had become familiar with his name through 
Betty’s letters, for she had a “Pennsylva- 
nia Dutch” woman’s natural reserve, and 
in addition the distrust of strangers of a 
woman who has lived all her life in a rustic 
community. 

Edwyna came running around the house to 
see who had arrived, and Miss Jane met this 
important new member of the household with 
the apparently sceptical hope “that she was 
a good leetle girl,” much to Edwyna’s surprise. 
So far in her life, visitors had happily taken 
that for granted. 

“Now, dear Miss Jane, let me show you to 
your room. You must be tired after your long 
trip,” suggested Mrs. Baird. 


153 


MISS JANE ARRIVES 

“Tired ? Shucks !” said Miss Jane, crisply. 
“I done a batch o’ bread afore sunup, an’ I 
feel spry ’s a kitten,” they heard her answer, as 
she mounted the steps to her room. 

“So that’s Miss Jane! Well, she’s a 
peach!” said Jack. “She ran me through 
with that sharp look of hers.” 

“ She ’s a grand woman,” said Betty, gravely. 
“A heroine! She ’s been a seamstress all her 
life, in a narrow valley on the Susquehanna. 
She supported her father and mother while 
they lived. Her father was ‘doless’ and her 
mother ‘poorly’ as they say there. Then she 
helped her sister, who had a drunken husband 
and a lot of children. She ’s never complained, 
and she ’d be insulted if you said a word to her 
about her self-sacrifice. She always tried to 
make people believe that her father was 
‘poorly’ too, and couldn’t work. She never 
mentioned her brother-in-law. Oh, she ’s full 
of pride!” 

“Bully for Miss Jane!” Jack cried ad- 
miringly, for he felt that he already knew her 
well, from Betty’s talk about her. 

“She ’s certainly a brave one!” exclaimed 
Minturne. “I hope I shall become well ac- 


154 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

quainted with her. It ’s unusual to find such 
characters nowadays. No doubt there are 
many of them, but I have n’t happened to run 
across them.” 

“ She ’ll make it lively enough for you ! ” 
warned Betty, laughing at her memories of 
Miss Jane’s sharp tongue. “You ’ll not have 
a failing that she won’t hold up to you. Yet 
all the time you ’ll feel that it ’s not malicious 
in the slightest.” 

“It may sound conceited,” laughed back 
Minturne, “but all you say only makes me 
more eager to know her better.” 

“I wish she ’d hurry and come down,” said 
Jack. “She really doesn’t need an hour to 
take off even that coal-scuttle bonnet, and 
I ’ll bet she ’s not the kind to lie down in the 
afternoon.” 

“You may be sure she is n’t. I don’t know 
just what she may be doing, but probably she’s 
insisting on helping my mother at something 
or other.” 

“From all you have told me about Miss 
Jane,” said Minturne, thoughtfully, “I should 
judge her to be a good deal like Professor 
Wayte of Oxford. When Professor Freeman 


155 


MISS JANE ARRIVES 

was once asked what Professor Wayte was 
doing, he replied : ‘ I don’t know, but I should 
suppose he is sitting in his chair, thinking how 
he can do some kind act to some one, or else 
doing it.’ ” 


XV 

THE TWINE WASH-RAG 

P RESENTLY Miss Jane and Mrs. Baird 
came out on the veranda. Although a 
woman of sixty, Miss Jane had all the 
vivid interest in life of a young girl, and now 
in the home of the people she loved and in 
whose friendship she felt secure, she was ex- 
periencing a traveller’s delight in new sights 
and surroundings. 

Her tall, gaunt figure, clad in rusty bomba- 
zine, was replete with nervous energy; her 
gray hair was gathered into a tight little knot 
at the back of her small head ; a pair of iron- 
rimmed spectacles surmounted her rather 
sharp nose. She walked spryly to the top of 
the steps and looking over the rims of her 
spectacles, called briskly, beckoning with her 
lean forefinger: 

“’Liz’beth, come here oncet!” 


THE TWINE WASH-RAG 


157 


Betty flew over to her, and taking the low 
steps two at a time, was at her side in an 
instant. 

“Here’s somepin fer you. It ain’t worth 
nothin’, but you was so fond of your bead 
necklace when you was a little girl, that I 
made this fer you.” 

Miss Jane handed her a bead reticule which 
she had worked with many an elaborate and 
painstaking stitch. It was a perfect copy of 
a century-old bag, charmingly designed in 
dull colors, and was not unlike those that 
were being carried by well-bred girls at the 
dictates of fickle fashion. 

“Oh, Miss Jane, it ’s beautiful! And you 
made it for me 1 ” Betty threw her young arms 
around the spare, rigid shoulders, kissing her 
again and again ; though as usual where Miss 
Jane was concerned, Betty didn’t know 
whether to laugh or to cry, for though her 
deeds were so unselfish, her manner was 
always positively threatening when she feared 
she was about to be thanked for them. 

“Ach, that ain’t worth a row o’ shucks.” 
She pushed Betty aside, and thrusting her 
hand deep down into her skirt pocket, drew 


158 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

out a twine wash-rag. ‘‘ I did n’t have nothin’ 
fer that perlite young man what helped me, 
so I wanter give him this here wash-rag. 
That red border won’t run. It ’s fast.” 

Betty’s eyes twinkled; but she hesitated. 
Would it be fair to Miss Jane to allow her to 
put herself in a position that would make her 
appear ridiculous to people who did not under- 
stand her peculiarities and love them, as they 
themselves did. She knew that Jack would 
understand, for she and Lois had told him a 
great deal about her. But what of Mr. Min- 
turne ? Betty’s mouth grew firm. 

“He ’s a gentleman. I know he ’ll under- 
stand,” she said to herself. 

“Come, Miss Jane !” she cried, putting her 
hand in Miss Jane’s arm. “Let ’s give it to 
him right away.” 

Miss Jane would not budge. “I won’t do 
no such thing, child. You give it to him.” 

Betty walked towards Mr. Minturne 
thoughtfully, stretching out the wash-rag, 
then folding it to a neat little square. She 
could n’t be quite sure of the wisdom of giving 
it. Yet she knew that Miss Jane would be 
disappointed if she could not, in her favorite 


THE TWINE WASH-RAG 


159 

way, acknowledge Mr. Minturne’s courtesy 
in carrying her parcels. 

“Well, it "s time I trust him. And I do,'’ 
was the way she summed up her cogitations, 
with a characteristic dash of her hand over her 
bright hair, as though she had smoothed all 
difficulties out of her mind. 

Minturne noticed that her usually merry 
face was grave and preoccupied. 

“By the way, Mr. Minturne,” she began 
lightly, “I think you must have second sight. 
Or is it plain insight? Like your Professor 
Wayte, she was thinking of something kind to 
do, and it was for you ! Miss Jane is so grateful 
for your services that she asked me to give you 
this.” 

For a moment Minturne looked down at the 
gift in his hand, evidently mystified. Jack, 
who had seen a succession of these wash-rags 
come to the Bairds from Miss Jane's kind and 
busy fingers, recognized it at once, and his 
eyes flashed mischievously. Then Minturne 
made it out, and with a pleased glance at Betty, 
he examined the fast-dyed wash-rag attentively. 

“Well, if that isn't about the nicest thing 
that has happened to me in many a long 


i6o BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


day!” he exclaimed, and hurried over to 
Miss Jane. 

“I do thank you, Miss Hufnagel — ” he 
began; but Miss Jane interrupted him, de- 
termined to frustrate his efforts to thank her. 

“This here ’s an awful nice place, ain’t it 
is?” She looked admiringly around at the 
house and the garden. 

Betty came to the relief of Mr. Minturne, 
who was somewhat embarrassed by his first 
experience with the quaint Pennsylvania Dutch 
idiom and peculiar intonation. “Oh, Miss 
Jane, you know Lois is here, don’t you ? She 
and Mr. Lane are feeding the pony. Let ’s go 
after them.” 

Just then Lois and Dunny appeared, and 
Betty hurried to meet them. “Oh, Lois, 
guess who is here!” she cried. 

But Lois had spied Miss Jane’s tall figure 
and was running towards her, joining Betty 
in her jubilations. 

“Miss Jane, won’t you come down to the 
wharf and see us off?” asked Jack, as he 
shook hands with her at the porch. 

“ Oh, do let us go. Miss J ane ! ” Betty threw 
an arm around her waist, and they hurried to 


THE TWINE WASH-RAG 


i6i 

a point that overlooked the landing. Miss 
Jane stared wonderingly at the young men’s 
duck suits, and shook her head. 

“Them white suits o’ theirn must make 
their mothers an awful wash, ain’t, Betty? 
But I guess they must have hired girls to help 
’em do ’em up,” she concluded, brightening. 

The two stood on the bank and waved fare- 
wells as the graceful launch started off. 

“ Oncet I rode on a packet boat on the canal. 
I was leetle then, jest about knee high to a 
grasshopper,” Miss Jane murmured. “I 
don’t think them lunches half as nice as 
packets. No, indeed, they ain’t !” she added 
energetically, looking after the handsome 
boat. 

She turned and looked at Betty, who was 
watching the men jump from the launch to 
the Kings’ yawl, and whose eyes followed the 
yawl until the peak of the white sail, show- 
ing a moment against the deep blue of the 
sky, sank out of sight behind the golden 
sandbars. 

Miss Jane paused, then she added what she 
had not intended in the beginning, as she 
observed Betty's face, the light in the dark eyes, 

II 


1 62 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


the exquisite color on the oval cheeks, the 
wistful smile on the sweet lips. “ I guess 
them lunches don’t seem so nice because I 
ain’t young no more yet.” 

She realized that youth had cast the same 
mysterious radiance over the Pennsylvania 
canal-boat that it was now throwing for Betty 
over the trim yawl. 

“What did you say, Miss Jane?” Betty 
asked, hugging her closely, for Miss Jane had 
spoken under her breath. 

“Nothin’.” 

“Own up. Miss Jane, you feel exactly as I 
do,” said Betty, looking into the sharp blue 
eyes that were now a little misty. “I mean 
that I always feel sad when I see a boat push- 
ing off and watch it sail towards the horizon 
and then suddenly disappear. It ’s a farewell 
sort of a way.” 

“I see you ’re still a high-flyer, ’Liz’beth,” 
said Miss Jane, testily. She had no sympathy 
with sentiment, or at least, none that she was 
willing to show. “I guess a body can find a 
good bit in this world to make us sad that 
ain’t moonshine and water and boats.” 

She took the sting from her words by pat- 


THE TWINE WASH-RAG 163 

ting Betty’s hand lovingly, then exclaimed, to 
hide her feelings: 

‘‘My, ’Liz’beth, how strubbled your hair 
is!” and she gently pushed back the fine, 
loose curls. 

Betty laughed. She wanted to tell Miss 
Jane that she had grown very practical, but 
she did n’t have the gift of ready self-excuse. 
However, Miss Jane helped her. 

“You always was fond o’ potry, but your 
mother says how you’re right smart at figurin’ 
and been savin’ and countin’ your pennies. 
That ’s right. A penny saved is a penny 
earned. But you ’re a good girl, ’Liz’beth,” 
she finished briskly, as they started back 
towards the house. 

For several days Miss Jane was silent as to 
her reasons for coming to “Boxwood.” That 
she came unexpectedly was not surprising, 
as she loved surprises, and moreover it was 
always the unexpected that happened where 
she was concerned; but the fact that she had 
evidently come to stay a long time, as her 
baggage indicated, was puzzling. 

Gradually it leaked out that her two nephews 
were out of work and that Miss Jane’s sewing 


1 64 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

days in Weston were at an end. A new and 
fashionable dressmaker, with the sign “Ma- 
dame Bienvenu, Modes” in large gold letters 
on her door, had usurped the place so long 
held by Miss Jane. No one wished for plain 
sewing now, and the new dressmaker made 
all the Weston gowns except the increasing 
number that were bought “ready-made” in 
Philadelphia. 

Miss Jane had come to seek work in the 
city! 

It came out only in disconnected words 
and sentences, for it was hard to break a life- 
long habit of reticence. Abruptly Miss Jane 
had begun to ask for means of getting employ- 
ment for herself and then for the “little boys,” 
one of whom was eighteen, the other nearing 
seventeen. 

Mrs. Baird and Betty encouraged her 
heartily, and promised to begin at once to try 
to find places for the nephews, but they soon 
saw that her chief anxiety was to find work 
for herself, to help rather than to be helped. 

When they were alone, Betty turned to Mrs. 
Baird. 

“Why, mother — ” She hesitated, while a 


THE TWINE WASH-RAG 165 

look of gentle brooding came into her beau- 
tiful eyes. “Why, mother,’’ she repeated, 
‘‘can it be that Miss Jane is — superannu- 
ated ? A superannuated seamstress ? ” 

Betty smiled a little at her unexpected allit- 
eration, then her eyes sought the floor in 
perplexity. 

“Dear Miss Jane!” said gentle-hearted 
Mrs. Baird, lovingly. “It is good to see her. 
I can find some work for her here in the 
village, and she will be able to preserve her so 
dearly loved independence. But she must 
first have a good long vacation.” 

“Which you know perfectly well she will 
never take, mother, darling. But I think I 
can get places for the boys. They are rather 
bright. You know I went to school with one 
of them. Jack will help me, and so will Mr. 
Anstice.” 

“Your father says office boys are in great 
demand. They can get six or seven dollars a 
week, each, and with their thrifty habits and 
the rent from their little home in Weston, I 
believe they can manage very well.” 

In less than a week Betty had secured posi- 
tions for both boys, the older with Jack, at 


1 66 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


eight dollars per week, and the younger with 
Mr. Anstice at seven. There was promise of 
advancement in both places if they proved 
reliable, “which they certainly are, for they 
are Miss Jane’s nephews,” Betty commented 
emphatically. 

Lois offered Miss Jane a loan to bring the 
two boys to New York, but Miss Jane insisted 
that she had enough, and in a short time the 
three began the task, so new and strange to 
them, of living in a tiny flat in the city. To 
the boys’ salary Miss Jane was able to add 
her own earnings as her exquisite plain sew- 
ing became known to the ladies of Hobart 
through Mrs. Baird and Betty, and with the 
rent-money from Weston they were soon re- 
ceiving a considerable sum each month. 

“Lois, I have such a queer association of 
ideas,” said Betty. They were having their 
evening walk up and down under the firs and 
elms that bordered the path in front of the 
house. “You know that the basement in our 
Studio building is empty, and Miss Minturne 
will rent it only to extraordinarily desirable 
people. Mr. Anstice laughs at her and says 
she will never rent it, but she says she does n’t 


THE TWINE WASH-RAG 167 

care ; she must have a neat-looking basement. 
Her Studio demands artistic surroundings. 
Now, since Miss Jane has come, I can see 
in plain block letters on the basement door 
‘Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking."’’ 

“Why, Betty,” exclaimed Lois, reproach- 
fully, “do you think Miss Jane could run a 
restaurant ? ” 

“Miss Jane! No, indeed. But you know 
her sister is much younger, and she is the best 
cook in all Weston, and it ’s the best kind of 
characteristic Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. 
Her coffee and coffee-cake are just wonders. 
You see coffee-cake here, of course, but 
the real Dutch article is as different from 
that as — as — from leather ! And her sponge 
cake ! And her schmier kase I And her apple 
butter ! And her raisin pies 1 And her chicken 
pot-pie! Now you know her daughters are 
Dunkers, and how cute and fetching they’d 
be as waitresses with immaculate close-fit- 
ting caps and enormous white aprons!” 

“It would take! I know it would!” ex- 
claimed Lois, enthusiastically. “You must 
let me start them. Miss Jane could not object 
to a business loan.” 


1 68 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


“Yes, and Miss Minturne would let her 
have it for a low rent, and she could depend 
on Miss Minturne’s customers for patronage. 
They often ask for some nice place. Then my 
father and I would be delighted to go there, 
and there ’s a start.” 

When Betty broached the plan the next day. 
Miss Minturne was much pleased. The win- 
dows could be neatly curtained in barred 
muslin, she said, and Betty guaranteed that 
the place would be spotless. 

With characteristic energy Miss Minturne 
and Betty had Mrs. Gomp, Miss Jane’s sister, 
installed in short order. The walls were 
tinted a delicate yellow, and Miss Minturne 
lent her old brasses and coppers with blue 
platters to put on a narrow shelf, forming 
a frieze around the room. 

The fresh-faced Dutch maidens, with their 
stiffly starched caps and aprons, made a be- 
witching picture framed in such appropriate 
surroundings, for on the high old dresser the 
pewter shone as it had in its Pennsylvania 
home, and the conservative Dutch women 
carried their customs and their atmosphere 
unspoiled into their new environment. 


THE TWINE WASH-RAG 169 

From the beginning, these three of ‘‘The 
Harmless People,’' as the Dunkers used to be 
called, bustled around in good old house- 
wifely fashion, and treated the tea-room in the 
same pleasant, homely manner they always 
had their own well-scrubbed kitchen. New 
York is hungry for home life, and when 
these plain motherly souls came into the 
dining-room, all genuine solicitude for their 
guests, as if by their own hearthside and with- 
out pecuniary considerations, they created an 
atmosphere very grateful to the homeless New 
Yorkers. 


XVI 

BETTY ORGANIZES A CITY HISTORY CLUB 

B etty took her vacation in August, and 
every day Edwyna claimed her as her 
own particular property. Dottie, her 
nearest neighbor, never failed to pay her a 
daily visit, and Edwyna’s “set,’’ the girls who 
welcomed Lois at the May-day party, were 
usually in the group that surrounded Betty, 
while she, her mother. Miss Jane, and Lois 
read and sewed on the broad veranda or under 
the firs. Most of these girls were several years 
older than Edwyna, though Dottie, of course, 
was the pet and baby of the “set.” 

To-day they dragged Betty off to one end 
of the veranda, with the demand for “a long, 
long story.” Thrusting her by main force into 
one of the huge porch chairs, they ranged 
themselves round her. 

Quaint, charming Christine Stopford 
dropped on the floor, wholly indifferent to 


A CITY HISTORY CLUB 


171 

the fate of the dainty pongee coat that had 
just come from Paris, for Christine’s laughing 
blue eyes “saw only Virgil” when Betty was 
near, and her fertile fancy was busy with de- 
lightful anticipations of an enchanting story. 
Thoughtful Phyllis Grey sank gracefully into a 
steamer chair, her skirts falling naturally into 
symmetrical folds; while Priscilla Whitford, 
enthusiastic and endowed with initiative, sat 
on the top step, switching back her long brown 
hair as a preliminary to listening “without any 
bother.” 

Dottie arranged her stiffly starched skirts 
decorously, looking prim and chubby as she 
outdid her elders in dignity and propriety in 
her duteous though, alas ! short-lived recol- 
lection of her mother’s parting admonition 
“not to get mussed.” Virginia Low, after 
spinning around on her toes like a gay little 
top, sat with unaccustomed immobility near 
Betty. While pretty, cheerful Marybelle Strat- 
ton, sweet Mary Breslin, and dainty Nettie 
Hood, the little bookworm, drew a settle up to 
the group. 

Edwyna balanced on the edge of a brilliant 
red hammock, and holding on firmly with 


172 BETTY BAIRD^S GOLDEN YEAR 

both hands, kept herself swinging by an 
industrious digging of her shining shoe tips 
into the floor. Her black hair was parted in 
the middle and held back by a Roman striped 
ribbon. Edwyna was still “passionately fond 
of hair ribbons,’’ and they managed somehow 
always to be the perkiest little ribbons in the 
set, though Christine’s “topknot,” as Betty 
called the broad bow on the top of the golden 
head, was, also in Betty’s language, “the most 
lovable.” 

Their differing characteristics were of un- 
failing interest to Betty, and their pretty cajol- 
ing was bewitching to her as she looked at 
them with sweet laughing eyes while they hud- 
dled close around her in their eagerness and 
importunity. 

This was by no means their first meeting 
with her. During the winter “the set” had 
encircled the fire in the old-fashioned hall, 
and Betty, on the long sofa, with a child 
snuggled up close on each side of her, — it 
was the post of honor, at which they took 
turns, — told about her boarding-school days at 
“ The Pines,” when a “ really-righty story” was 
demanded to vary the legends of which Betty 


A CITY HISTORY CLUB 


173 


had an unfailing store. The history of The 
Order of The Cup, which Betty had founded 
among her friends at Weston, was of unceas- 
ing interest. 

“I don't see why we can't have a club of 
some kind," cried Priscilla to-day, springing 
up in her eagerness and throwing herself on 
her knees before Betty. 

“Oh, Betty, let's have a club! Let's!" 
came a chorus, even Dottie lisping out enthu- 
siasm as rapidly as nature would allow, 
“Letth! Letth!" 

Christine and Phyllis, with their arms 
around each other, crowded nearer, for all 
were now on their feet. Edwyna jumped out 
of the hammock and ran to Betty, hugging her 
about the neck. Priscilla had both her hands, 
while Dottie, in a mad burst of the contagious 
enthusiasm, tumbled headlong into her lap. 

“Oh, children, children, you're smothering 
me!" cried Betty. 

“Oh, please excuse us!" said the older 
girls in a breath, stepping back hastily. 

“You darling polite children !" cried Betty, 
who saw in a flash that their courteous little 
hearts had reproached them for appearing to 


174 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

be rude to her. She gathered them into her 
arms, stretching out her hands to catch the 
very last one of them. 

“Now I wonder who’s 

The old woman who lived in a shoe, 

She had so many children she didn’t know what to do !” 

she chanted and panted; and all, laughing, 
joined in. 

Phyllis stepped back and fell into a brown 
study. Then she turned and whispered some- 
thing to Christine, who clapped her hands 
delightedly and pushed her towards Betty. 

“I’ve just thought of a plan for a club, and 
Christine likes it — ” began Phyllis. 

“Excuse me, but it’s perfectly splendid!” 
interrupted Christine, her eyes glowing like 
stars. She pressed closer and hugged Phyllis’s 
arm. 

“Good, Phyllis! Let us hear what it is.” 
And turning to Edwyna and Dottie, who were 
engaged in a warm-day wrangle, she added: 
“You two children sit there on that settle and 
say ‘prunes and prisms!’ while we talk over 
Phyllis’s idea.” 

Little Dottie, with literal obedience, climbed 


A CITY HISTORY CLUB 


175 


up on the settle and began to pout out from 
her cherubic mouth “Prunth and prithimth/’ 
causing unbounded hilarity among the older 
girls. But Edwyna’s black eyes flashed, and 
two red spots came to her olive cheeks as she 
walked with dignity to the hammock. Betty 
took in the situation at a glance, and her eyes 
twinkled. She motioned the other children to 
sit down near her. 

“You’ve been telling us about the old Pres- 
byterian Church and other historical buildings 
here,” said Phyllis, “and I remember that my 
cousin, Margaret Weldon, who lives in New 
York, belongs to the City History Club con- 
nected with her father’s parish. She just loves 
it, and they go around to see places. Last 
week they went in an automobile to that church 
where the Prince of Wales’s three feathers 
are — ” 

Phyllis paused, looking inquiringly at Betty. 

“That’s St. Paul’s, the only surviving church 
of colonial times in New York City. The 
Prince of Wales’s feathers are at the top of 
the old pulpit.” 

“Why couldn’t we have a City History 
Club?” demanded Priscilla. 


176 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

A round of applause met this suggestion, 
and Edwyna and Dottie ran to join the 
group. 

‘‘I think that would be very interesting,” 
said Christine, in a deliberative way. “I 
have always liked those little accounts of real 
things in the back of ‘ St. Nicholas,’ and now 
we can have our own history !” 

“Well, since the idea meets the approval of 
this august assembly, we may as well organize 
and have a History Club. Of course I can’t 
give much time to it, but Lois will help, and 
you children can soon carry it on for your- 
selves, with a leader.” 

“My cousin Margaret is coming to spend 
part of the summer with us, and she’s fifteen 
and has been to boarding-school, so she must 
know a great deal and could help us,” sug- 
gested Phyllis. 

“She would make an excellent leader, and 
if she’s been at boarding-school, why, she 
must be wise!” laughed Betty. Standing up, 
and throwing her arms around Phyllis and 
Christine, she led the way into the book-room, 
where they found paper and pens ready to 
hand in organizing the new club, for Betty 


A CITY HISTORY CLUB 


177 

never allowed the grass to grow under her 
feet when anything like this came up. 

Even the children felt the charm of the 
little book-room. It was directly back of 
the long drawing-room, and wholly fulfilled the 
saying attributed to Thomas a Kempis: “I 
have sought rest everywhere, and found it 
nowhere save in a little corner, with a little 
book.” Two deep windows overlooked the 
flower garden, and a door at the side, opening 
out on the side porch, stood open. The room 
was flooded with sunshine, and gay arabesques 
of vines and shrubs danced on the polished 
floor. 

“ Here ’s the very spot for the organization 
of the History Club,” said Betty. “A veranda 
is too frivolous. It would do for a — well, 
say a dancing club.” 

‘‘Shall we have a president?” began Ed- 
wyna, eagerly, and perhaps a trifle anxiously. 

“Oh, my, yes; let ’s have it grand and in 
full regalia.” 

“I move that Phyllis be made president, 
because the plan is hers, and she would make 
a splendid president, anyway,” said generous 
Christine. 


12 


178 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

The previous winter she had belonged to a 
little society in her school, and the unconscious 
ease with which she made this motion excited 
her friends’ admiration. 

“I did n’t know we had such a parliamen- 
tarian among us,” said Betty, smiling down 
on the sweet upturned face. 

Christine blushed, but looked gratified, too, 
for it is seldom that our hard-earned school 
accomplishments fit in so pat. 

“I second Christine’s motion,” said Nettie, 
rising and bowing primly to Betty, for she, 
too, belonged to a society. 

“Priscilla is a lovely writer,” urged Chris- 
tine, when the subject of a secretary for the 
Club came up. 

Priscilla was elected forthwith. 

At this, Betty noticed that Edwyna’s face 
had grown very red, and there was a suspicious 
winking of her black eyes. She understood. 

Edwyna was ambitious. She had a child’s 
desire to be at the head of everything. This 
was the source of her frequent quarrels with 
the younger but not less ambitious Dottie. 
It had amused Betty, until she considered 
that love of power, the desire to be the leader, 


A CITY HISTORY CLUB 


179 

was growing to be the ruling idea with Edwyna 
in all plays and games. 

Betty suspected that she, as the cousin 
of the Club’s leader, had expected to be 
chosen for some office, and that there was — 
strange as it might seem — genuine heart- 
burning in that little circle. She looked curi- 
ously at Christine, to see whether she felt her 
lack of a post of honor, and was delighted to 
find her forehead unclouded, and that Virginia, 
Marybelle, Mary, and Nettie were equally well 
contented. 

Excusing herself to the girls, Betty went 
out on the porch to consult her mother. 

“What shall I do, Carissima?” she asked, 
sitting down by her mother’s side and giving 
her a quick review of the past hour. “I feel 
cross with Edwyna, for she is the only one who 
has shown an ugly spirit to-day.” 

“Poor little Edwyna!” said Mrs. Baird, 
smiling, and stroking one of Betty’s hands 
tenderly. “She ’ll outgrow this trait, if we 
are careful.” 

“Well, it ’s perfectly horrid now 1” burst out 
Betty, mortified at her cousin’s behavior. 

“My daughter, you can broaden her nature 


i8o BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


by showing her models of patriotism and 
disinterestedness, and present to her and to 
all the girls a standard of right feeling towards 
others. American history is crowded with 
glorious examples of unselfishness.’’ 

“Oh, that ’s a splendid idea !” cried Betty, 
springing to her feet and walking up and down 
impetuously. “I see my way. I’ll try to help 
them get away from their own little selves — 
yet that ’s not easy,” she added, humbled by 
the thought of herself as a leader. Her own 
imperfections were well known to her. 

Hastening back to the book-room, Betty 
found that Edwyna had left the group, and 
was haughtily sitting in an immense wing 
cosey-chair, engaged in writing a letter, — an 
arduous task for most children. With Edwyna, 
however, the art was natural, and at this 
moment of her slight — as she conceived it to 
be — she had hurried to “show those girls” 
that she too had her gifts ! Her chin was up 
in the air and her whole manner invited in- 
spection of her letter. 

The girls pressed around her and exclaimed 
with genuine big-sisterly pride at her accom- 
plishment. 


A CITY HISTORY CLUB i8i 


^‘Oh, Betty, Edwyna has written the cutest 
letter!’’ cried Virginia. 

Mary took the letter from Edwyna’s un- 
resisting hand and showed it with much glee 
to Betty. As it so often happens, Edwyna’s 
naughty pretensions were immediately recog- 
nized and flattered, and won the girls to beg 
for her the proud position of corresponding 
secretary. 

Betty shook her head disapprovingly. 

“That position is not needed in the Club 
now, but Edwyna may hold it.” She spoke 
sternly, and the girls opened their eyes. 

“Now let us go out on the porch, for I’m 
going to preach,” she went on happily. 

The threatened ordeal did not appear at all 
disagreeable to the girls, if twinkling eyes and 
dimpling cheeks meant anything. Quite fear- 
lessly they filed out after Betty. 

“It ’s good for children to be preached to. 
As ‘April showers bring May flowers,’ so well- 
done duties bring heart beauties 1 How ’s 
that for a rhyme?” 

The girls all laughed, looking at each other 
delightedly, for it was always such delicious 
fun to be near Betty. She leaned against the 


1 82 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


white fluted pillar, and, raising an interrogatory 
hand, asked: 

“ ‘ Breathes there a man with soul so dead 
Who never to himself hath said, 

This is my own, my native land ! * ” 

Betty broke off to wave the girls, who were 
standing in a semicircle around her, to seats. 

“Sit down, girls, on these cushions. Those 
in blue and white are ‘ The Pines ’ pillows, and 
are the seats of honor. This vermilion one is 
for naughty little girls,’’ she added, smiling 
on Edwyna and Dottie. 

With a wicked flash of her huckleberry- 
black eyes, Edwyna plumped down on it, and 
pulled Dottie, struggling indignantly and in- 
sisting that she was a “dood dirl,” down 
beside her. 

“It ’s a great privilege, young ladies,” began 
Betty, “to be American citizens. I believe 
every one of us has a Revolutionary ancestry, 
and I do think it ’s about time that we know 
something definite of these forefathers of ours. 
This City History Club will meet regularly, 
and I hope that through it we shall learn 
to appreciate better what they did for us. 


A CITY HISTORY CLUB 183 

Though more than two hundred years have 
passed, we should still be grateful to the early 
settlers of our country.’’ 

“Hear! hear!” cried a manly voice, and 
Craig Ellsworth, his oars balanced in his right 
hand, appeared round the corner of the porch 
to take his little sister home in his boat. 

“Oh, you, Craig! Come up. Sit down. 
We’re something very important now. 
Guess!” 

“Oh, bother! You know, Betty, I never 
could guess anything,” retorted Craig, with an 
air of boredom, while he threw himself down 
comfortably on the top step and eyed the 
girls with an amused smile. 

“Sure enough, poor fellow! You can’t 
guess anything, can you?” Betty returned, 
pityingly. Then with an imposing manner, 
she announced: “We are the City History 
Club!’’ 

“The City History Club! Gee, what’s 
that?” he exclaimed, looking around the 
circle again. 

“Please exercise your imagination a little,” 
she replied crushingly. “My plan is this,” 
continued Betty, turning to the children: “we 


184 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

can beg, borrow, or hire an automobile or a 
hay wagon or something, and visit the places 
around Long Island, then go to New York, 
for that city was one of the storm centres of 
the Revolution.” 

“Mr. Brooks will take us in his big red 
automobile. Cousin Betty,” broke in Edwyna, 
surprised into the rudeness of an interruption 
by her interest. “He told me last evening 
that he M do anything for me.” 

At this the older girls looked disconcerted. 
They did not know how Betty would take this 
liberty with the name of one they looked upon 
as her special friend. 

“That ’s an idea! He ’ll be our knight to 
take us on our pilgrimages. That it ’s a red 
touring car instead of a snow-white palfrey or 
a coal-black steed makes no difference except 
in poetry — and speed 1” 

“Won’t you let me go, too, please?” 
pleaded Craig. “I ’ll be court jester, falconer, 
or any old thing.” 

“Oh, you may go as our — our — History 
is your specialty, is n’t it ? You can prepare 
the itinerary for our trip, and call out the points 
of interest through a big megaphone.” 


A CITY HISTORY CLUB 185 

“Ah, you Ye too good!’" 

“Mr. and Mrs. King would take us, and Mr. 
Minturne, too,” said Edwyna, her black head 
nodding positively. 

“Oh, everybody will!” cried Betty, en- 
thusiastically. 

Betty’s love for the early days was genuine, 
not inspired merely by pride of family and 
possessions, but by a realization, rare in a 
young girl, of the splendor of the colonial 
dream and its magnificent and providential 
realization in the War for Independence; 
and she could feel keenly the hardships 
of those brave pioneers, north and south 
and west, during their wars with hostile 
Indians. 

The children had begun to chatter busily 
among themselves, allowing Betty freedom to 
think it over and to tell Craig about the 
Club, and to ask his help, which he gladly 
promised. 

“When Miss Byrd comes in, we’ll ask her 
about her home in Maryland, and perhaps 
she ’ll invite us to visit her. It ’s a quaint 
colonial village.” 

“Oh, splendid !” cried Priscilla, while Chris- 


1 86 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


tine clapped her pink palms together delight- 
edly, and gave herself that little shuddering 
hug expressive of complete delight. 

“I ’d love to see Maryland, especially Balti- 
more,” said Phyllis, “for my mother was born 
there and I Ve always wanted to see it.” 

“Washington isn’t very far from Balti- 
more, is it, Betty?” asked Virginia, snuggling 
close to Betty and looking up into her face. 

“Not very,” answered Betty, patting the 
brown freckled cheek. 

“And I ’d love to visit Virginia,” said Pris- 
cilla, “for my grandmother came from there.” 

Betty and Craig joined in a hearty laugh. 
As soon as Betty could get breath, she said: 

“You dear things, you’ll drag me all around 
this blessed country if you don’t stop soon ! 
Now let ’s get down to business. Stop laugh- 
ing, Craig, or we ’ll not let you take us all over 
New York, flourishing a big megaphone.” 

Betty then instructed the girls to hunt up 
some historical fact about Hobart, or any 
place within easy driving distance, and they 
would talk it over the next Saturday after- 
noon. Even if two hit on the same subject, 
she said, it would be interesting to see it from 


A CITY HISTORY CLUB 187 

two different points of view. She asked them 
to talk over village traditions with old people 
and write them out, and to give a description 
of any antique piece of furniture or china or 
brass or silver they possessed. It would all 
help to construct a picture of those splendid 
early days. 

Betty paused for breath. “There ! That ’s 
a speech for you 

“Thank you, Betty,” said Phyllis, rising. 
“I do think you are so kind to take up your 
time for us in this way.” 

“Oh, I love it! Otherwise I might not be 
so ‘kind,’” laughed Betty. “Now Lois and 
I are going out for a drive behind the fat- 
test, laziest, dearest pony on Long Island. 
Craig, I know you have to take Dottie home. 
Come over this evening, and tell us all about 
Columbia.” 

That night, after her bedtime story, Edwyna 
murmured her little prayer beside Betty, then 
jumped up rather hastily to hear her “ Sand- 
man’s story.” But Betty gently drew her down 
again and knelt by her side. 

“May we be glad when others are glad, and 
sorry when they are sorry. May we be glad 


1 88 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


when others succeed, and sorry when they 

After this significant prayer Betty kissed her 
good-night and was about to close the door, 
when she heard Edwyna calling to her in a 
little voice. Betty ran over to her, and Edwyna 
threw one arm around her neck and drew her 
ear down close to her mouth, and whispered 
‘‘Amen!’’ 

Betty was never certain whether Edwyna 
had given way to unaccustomed contrition, 
or had followed an impish impulse, but she 
was wise enough not to propound the riddle 
to Edwyna. 


XVII 

MISS SNELL 

M ISS Minturne and Mr. Anstice were 
married very quietly on a brilliant 
day in early October, and at once 
started on a year’s journey round the world. 
Betty and Lois went down to the pier to see 
them off, and threw many kisses to the hand- 
some, happy bride, and waved farewells with 
dainty handkerchiefs, which they had to apply 
industriously to overflowing eyes as soon as 
their backs were turned. They were two very 
disconsolate girls when they took the train for 
Hobart, Betty thinking of the long year before 
she should see her friend again, Lois concerned 
more than she would admit about Betty’s fu- 
ture in her chosen work, for Miss Minturne 
had sold her business to a Miss Snell, giving 
Betty, however, a one-fourth interest “as a 
token of her love.” 

For two years the dream, the romance of 
Betty’s young life, had been to help her father 


I go BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

free their home from its mortgage, so they 
could look the dear old house in the face and 
say: ‘‘You are ours. No one shares you with 
us.’’ Of course this day-dream was not all- 
absorbing, for Betty’s life, like that of all 
young happy things, had many mingling 
threads of interest. 

In spite of this debt, Betty’s home was 
always cheerful. Mrs. Baird never discussed 
at meals or other family gatherings the financial 
problems that occupied her mind. When the 
inevitable interest was about to fall due, she 
and Betty would have a quiet little talk over 
ways and means. 

Usually, though, day after day passed in 
unbroken sunshine for the girls, and youth and 
health, in themselves antidotes to foreboding, 
kept the big old-fashioned rooms filled wih 
laughter, music, dancing, and merry rompings. 
There are few boys or girls who, like the youth- 
ful Warren Hastings, make a vow to redeem 
the stately possessions of their ancestors, and 
cling through life, for good or ill, to the child’s 
day-dream. 

“Boxwood” was the only real home Betty 
had ever known, and perhaps her devotion to 


MISS SNELL 


191 

it surpassed that of those who have had the 
shelter of a house that has “always been in 
the family/’ Her only other home had been 
the manse in Weston, and there many an 
official — or officious — member cautioned the 
little Betty to “be careful, because it wasn’t 
her own house, but was church property.” 
Even Mrs. Baird, in excessive conscientious- 
ness, would occasionally remind Betty to be 
careful of the paint or paper, because they 
belonged to the church. For Betty, then, a 
place of their own was an introduction not 
only to a genuine home, but to liberty. 

When Miss Minturne gave her the interest 
in the business, Betty saw that if the Studio of 
Design was carried on as it had been, she could, 
with her salary and her share of the profits, 
add enough to her father’s savings in two or 
three years to cancel the mortgage. 

Naturally she was full of glee over her part- 
nership. It was quite wonderful to be able 
to say “our Studio” with the feeling of one- 
fourth proprietorship; though this feeling, it 
is true, was not wholly new, for Betty had so 
identified herself with Miss Minturne’s inter- 
ests that “our Studio” had always slipped 


192 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

easily from her tongue, especially as Miss Min- 
turne herself never used the excluding “my.’* 

For a few days, then, Betty walked on rose- 
colored clouds. But only for a few days. Soon 
there came a storm-cloud that threatened their 
rosy hue. 

Of course, Lois and Betty had wondered 
what manner of person Miss Snell would be, 
though, to be sure, at their age a new person- 
ality in the business did not seem at all por- 
tentous; and, moreover, at first sight there 
was nothing in Miss Snell’s appearance to 
arouse apprehension, even if she was exactly 
Miss Minturne’s opposite. She was short and 
stout, and entirely lacked that grace that 
made Miss Minturne distinctive. 

She was younger than Miss Minturne. Her 
suave manner, combined with her large, full 
gray eyes that seemed to embrace the whole 
world in charity, gave an impression of benevo- 
lence. On the surface her nature was kind. 
It went out in all sorts of spontaneous acts; 
yet she soon wearied of any one who interfered, 
however slightly or unintentionally, with her 
liberty or with her self-love. 

The key to her attitude, when she took 


MISS SNELL 


193 


charge of the Studio, was jealousy of her 
predecessor’s influence with her associates 
and clients. Accordingly, she began at once 
to change everything in order to undervalue 
Miss Minturne, and to show that now she 
was the “boss.” Jealousy, indeed, so worked 
on her undisciplined nature that very soon she 
began to dismiss the old helpers one by one. 

Betty was tactful and just, but she found that 
Miss Snell was high-handed and was deter- 
mined to run things as she pleased, without 
regard to her junior partner or reference to 
past policies or successes of the Studio. 

“This place needs a perfect revolution!” 
snapped Miss Snell, as she bounced into the 
room where Betty was finishing a water- 
color sketch for the decoration of a house, for 
which plans had been drawn before Miss 
Minturne sold the Studio. 

At these words, now used for the fortieth 
time, it seemed to Betty, she felt two spots 
flame resentfully in her cheeks. However, she 
looked up inquiringly, and Miss Snell had lost 
her temper to such an extent that Betty’s slight 
withdrawal at the word “revolution” passed 
unnoticed. 


*3 


194 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Miss Snell did not continue. She bustled 
up to the desk and leaned over Betty’s chair, 
glanced at her drawing, then snatched it up, 
soiling it as she rumpled it heedlessly be- 
tween her fingers. 

Betty watched with indignant eyes, but she 
restrained her temper, and as she looked at 
the weak, incompetent woman, once more the 
whole situation flashed through her mind. 
Miss Snell plumed herself on the fact that she 
had never studied artistic decoration ; she had 
‘‘picked it up; it came naturally,” she said. 
Before many days had passed it was not 
necessary for her to insist on her first state- 
ment. It was only too easily believed by those 
who had been with Miss Minturne. That “it 
came naturally” remained to be proved. 

“She is untrained,” Betty thought, “and 
does n’t know how to carry on this work, and 
it irritates her. But she won’t acknowledge 
it to herself, or, of course, to any one else. 
That makes her ugly about Miss Minturne 
and every one here.” 

Miss Snell was holding the drawing at 
arm’s length, and examining it through half- 
closed eyes. 


MISS SNELL 


195 

“This will never do, never in the world! 
I see I ’ll have to ask Miss Rutter to go over 
your work. In fact, you need n’t trouble 
yourself further about it. I ’ll have Miss Rutter 
draw up some plans that I ’m sure will please 
Mrs. LeLeche much better.” 

Throwing it down on the desk with a hope- 
less air. Miss Snell prepared to move oflf. 

“Excuse me. Miss Snell,” began Betty, in 
a tense voice, her eyes blazing. “What do 
you see to criticise in this ? I shall be glad 
to have definite criticism.” 

Miss Snell had never been pinned down to 
specific criticism and could not make it. Defi- 
nite directions were impossible to her. She tore 
down in a vague way, but never built up. 

“There ’s no need of your losing your 
temper,” she said, with that assumption of 
superiority that is so irritating. “I see Miss 
Minturne in every line of this drawing. I 
don’t agree at all with her ideas in decoration, 
and in time I shall make radical changes here. 
This place needs a revolution. I can’t have 
my studio carried on in this way.” 

Betty drew herself up, and her face grew 
pale with indignation. 


196 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

“Please remember, Miss Snell,’’ she said 
quietly, “that this is our studio, not yours 
alone. However, I think it is a very good 
idea, as Mrs. LeLeche is such an important 
client, for you to have Miss Rutter draw up 
another plan; then we can submit both of 
them for her choice.” 

“Knowing Miss Rutter’s ability as I do, I 
am confident that Mrs. LeLeche will not care 
to see any other plans than hers,” Miss Snell 
replied, leaving hastily. 

Betty sat down dazed, looking at the draw- 
ing over which she had spent so many hours 
of hard work. She felt that this was the best 
thing she had ever accomplished. 

“ She will run this business into the ground,” 
she groaned. “Then where will be the money 
for the mortgage ! Poor old daddy !” 

Despair crept into her heart, none the less 
bitter because it was a girlish heart that had 
tucked away in it many happy adjusting re- 
sources. She decided not to say anything to 
her parents about this for the present, for 
they had been delighted over her unexpected 
good fortune, and perhaps something might 
turn up to bring things to rights. 


MISS SNELL 


197 


She picked up the rejected plans and looked 
at them long and critically. Then, with a 
smile, she began to clean off the finger-marks 
made by Miss Snell. As she worked, her 
smile grew brighter. 

“We ’ll wait until Mrs. LeLeche comes. 
She liked our rough sketch, and as she is the 
one who is paying for it, I rather think she ’ll 
have something to say about it.” 


XVIII 

LOIs’s ENGAGEMENT 


NGAGED to Dunmore Lane! You, 
Lois Byrd 1 ” 



With a hesitating flourish of a hand- 
some new ring, Lois had told Betty that she 
and Dunmore Lane were engaged to be mar- 
ried, the thing which of all Betty most feared. 

“So it is settled!’’ said Betty, in a sinking 
voice. 

She sat down, tense and expectant, near 
Lois. Lois was looking off into space. She 
nodded her head slowly. 

“Yes. Dunny has heard from my father,” 
she said, smiling at Betty. Then she began 
to laugh. “What a woe-begone face!” 

“Lois, I’m horribly, horribly jealous!” 

“Oh, Betty, when I’m so happy!” 

“Yes, I’m jealous, and a mean, narrow- 
minded, small-hearted friend — but oh, Lois !” 

She ran over to her friend and, kneeling, 
threw her arms around her, hugging her tight. 


LOIS’S ENGAGEMENT 


199 


‘‘We’ll never be the same again. Dunny’s 
first now, and — oh, I can’t stand it!’’ Be- 
tween a laugh and a cry Betty scrambled to 
her feet. “I’ll help plan your wedding finery, 
though!” Then she added with a kiss: 
“There’s no one I’d rather — rather have for 
a brother-friend than Dunny Lane.” 

Lois smiled very sweetly. She was, even 
for her, unusually still and quiet, and to Betty 
this was the beginning of the parting of their 
ways. Never before had Lois remained so 
silent, so indisposed to “talk things over.” 
Here was this intense happening, and she 
only sat there by the window with that serene 
smile and far-away expression in her beautiful 
brown eyes. 

“Now, Betty, if you too were only — ” she 
began. 

Betty clapped her hands over her ears. 

“ No, I won’t, Lois Byrd, have you recom- 
mend matrimony to me. It ’s worked enough 
havoc already in our once happy home. You 
engaged, betrothed, to Dunmore Lane! I 
can’t realize it.” 

The girls laughed together, and the tense 
moment passed. 


200 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

^‘Yes/’ added Betty, trying to steer away 
from the subject of Dunmore Lane until she 
could get a hold on herself, “when people are 
deep in anything, they are always trying to 
drag others in. You know Jennie Walcott is 
a vegetarian, and she ’s constantly holding 
forth on its weird beauties.” Betty stopped 
abruptly. “ But I suppose that is not exactly 
to the point.” 

“No, it ’s not,” affirmed Lois, with feeling. 

“ Well, I ’m beginning to feel much broader- 
minded now, so let ’s have a good time plan- 
ning your wedding. Oh, Lois, how queer that 
does sound!” 

Betty looked at Lois as if she expected to 
see in the gentle, high-bred face some strange 
transformation. 

Lois smiled gayly. “Oh, I ’m so happy, 
Betty. It can’t make any difference between 
us. Why, I believe I love the whole world 
better because — of — this — and how much 
more I must love you, Betty, my comrade 1 ” 

At this Betty kissed Lois hurriedly and 
bolted to the door and ran down the hall to 
be with her mother. 

“Mother,” she cried, falling on her knees 


LOIS’S ENGAGEMENT 


201 


and holding Mrs. Baird’s hand in a tight 
grasp, “oh, mother, it ’s as if Lois were going 
to — to — die ! ” 

She buried her head in her mother’s lap. 

“Nonsense, Betty. Lift up your head. 
There ! ” With both hands under Betty’s 
chin, she raised the tear-stained face. “In a 
short while you will grow accustomed to the 
idea, and we shall all have a delightful time 
arranging Lois’s wedding.” 

Betty brightened, and straightened up on 
her knees. 

“We all love Dunny,” continued her mother, 
“and we know he is an honorable and loving 
fellow. As Lois loves him, she will have a 
happy life with him. We have both said they 
were suited to one another.” 

“Oh, I have always said no one was half 
good enough for Lois,” broke in Betty. 

“We naturally feel no one is good enough 
for our splendid girl. In time we ’ll feel just 
as loving about Dunny, and rejoice that Lois 
has such a noble husband. We can be thank- 
ful, too, that they are to live in New York 
and that Dunmore is no idler, though he is 
so wealthy, and that he is ambitious to be 


202 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


a first-class lawyer, like his father, Judge 
Lane.’’ 

“I am glad, mother. Indeed I am glad!” 
repeated Betty, as if the affirmation brought 
to the surface her real feelings about Lois’s 
engagement, which had been hidden by the 
surface excitement and jealousy, though a 
desire for an exclusive love was not a part of 
Betty’s make-up. “I don’t want to be mean 
and not be happy when Lois is happy. But 
just think, mother, she is sitting up there, 
looking out of the window with that contented, 
peaceful smile, and thinking of — a boy 1 ” 

Betty did not try to keep the scorn out of 
her voice. 

“Imagine me sitting by my window with a 
peaceful smile for Jack and Paul and Craig!” 
she finished. 

Mrs. Baird laughed heartily. “You don’t 
get the right idea. Leave out the ‘ands’ and 
put in ‘ors.’ It ’s easy to see you ’re heart- 
free, child. At least, if you can’t understand 
the deep part, you can give Lois your interest 
and loyalty, and keep from showing your 
disappointment.” 

Mrs. Baird felt a lightening of her heart 


LOIS’S ENGAGEMENT 


203 


when she heard Betty class Paul Waborne so 
carelessly with Jack and Craig. Oh, if she 
could only keep her little girl a while longer! 
Yet with the perfect happiness of her own 
married life before her mind, she knew she 
would have Betty married some day to a man 
she loved and honored. 

Suddenly, with a shock, came the omission 
that had escaped her, — Mr. Minturne 1 But 
no 1 She refused to consider him. Why, they 
had known each other only — Then she saw 
that her reasoning was not trustworthy and 
would not lead her to the longed-for conclu- 
sion, and she stopped. Her mother’s eyes had 
not been blinded to his evident admiration of 
her daughter. 

Betty, with her arms folded in her mother’s 
lap, was looking out towards the Sound, and 
Mrs. Baird smiled down at the fair head and 
pushed back tenderly the wayward curls that 
fell over her forehead. 

In the happiness of their new-found rela- 
tion Lois and Dunny’s conversation naturally 
turned to Betty. 

“Look at Paul, there,” remarked Dunny. 
“The old sobersides is laying down the law 


204 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

about something or other. He ’s been coming 
here pretty regularly since the May-day. I 
can’t for the life of me imagine what Betty 
sees in him.” 

“Oh, Betty doesn’t care for him particu- 
larly,” explained Lois. “But he attracts 
her in some ways. He ’s going to join the 
Brothers who are working among the moun- 
taineers in Tennessee, and he likes to talk to 
Betty about it; and his loyalty to the cause 
appeals to the strong sense of loyalty in her 
own nature. But there is n’t a trace of senti- 
ment in it on either side, I’m perfectly sure 
of that.” 

“I’m mighty glad of it,” said Dunny, 
heartily. “Jack’s the boy for her.” 

Lois shook her head thoughtfully. 

“I don’t believe it ’s Jack,” she answered 
slowly. “They are too much alike. And I 
don’t think Betty herself is sure, just yet, 
though I have my own suspicions.” 

“ Minturne ? ” asked Dunny, abruptly. 

Lois only smiled at him teasingly, then 
sprang up and ran over to where Betty and 
Paul were talking. 


XIX 

THE GOODS AND THE PATTERN 

I IFE had suddenly taken on a new as- 
j pect for Betty. Lois was engaged, 
Miss Minturne was married and far 
away; and with Miss Snell, Betty had daily 
opportunity to test her kinship with the one 
she had held up to Jack so casually in the 
spring, the man with the heart too large to 
remember a wrong. 

Though Betty, kept the fear to herself, she 
never went to the Studio without expecting to 
be told that at the end of the month her services 
would no longer be needed; for very few of 
the former Studio force remained. 

It was just after dinner. Mrs. Baird, Betty, 
and Miss Jane were in the sewing-room; 
Lois sat apart, writing, the others suspected, 
to Dunny, before taking up her sewing; for 
every one was now busily hemming for the 
bridal chest. 


2o6 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


‘‘I do believe the whole trouble with Miss 
Snell is the lack of a sense of humor/’ said 
Betty, abruptly, chuckling to herself. 

‘‘What is it this time, Betty?” inquired 
Lois, lifting her head expectantly. 

“Why, to-day I quoted one of our favorite 
things from ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ She 
asked where I got that. When I told her, 
she said disdainfully: ‘i think that ’s a very 
silly book.’ ” 

Betty and Lois shrieked with laughter. 

“ It ’s hard to hold a grudge against such a 
poor soul, isn’t it, Betty?” laughed Lois, 
returning to her letter, in which she incorpo- 
rated this last “Snellism,” as she called it, for 
Dunny’s enjoyment. 

Miss Jane was watching Betty with keen 
eyes, and gave her plenty of good advice. 

Miss Jane was one of those old-time seam- 
stresses who sewed by the day. They were 
often original characters, full of oddities and 
curious points of view, yet with shrewd com- 
mon sense and keen insight into human nature. 
In their wanderings from home to home, 
while drawing in and out the threads or snip- 
ping the material, they stored up many whole- 


THE GOODS AND THE PATTERN 207 

some aphorisms, rules of living deduced from 
the life around them. These they offered 
freely to their customers, often with a peculiar 
snappishness that seemed to become part of 
their nature through their occupation. 

So with Miss Jane. She did not gossip, but 
her generalizations on the human family were 
frequent in Weston, and one familiar with the 
village could usually locate the source of her 
reflections. 

She had watched over Betty, who had 
always been her pet, and who now, at nearly 
nineteen, seemed to the spinster hardly older 
than the pretty, dark-eyed, spirited child who 
used to recite ‘‘pieces’’ for the privilege of 
rummaging through her reticule for pepper- 
mint drops and bits of bright silk to make doll 
clothes with. 

This evening Betty was helping her mother 
with a dress for proud little Edwyna, who 
had begged to have it “for Sunday.” Only 
the swift scratching of Lois’s pen broke 
the busy silence, until Miss Jane spoke up 
slowly : 

“Now I think a body begins wantin’ life 
jes’ like fine stitch work,” surveying, not with- 


2o8 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


out complacency, the pearl-like stitches of her 
own needlework on Lois’s fine damask. 

“It often turns out pretty rough basting,” 
supplemented Betty, with a desire to carry on 
the figure rather than from any feeling in the 
matter. 

“Yes, I remember my dismay when I real- 
ized that things have a way of their own. And 
people have a way of their own too,” laughed 
Mrs. Baird, as she laid down the paper pat- 
tern on the material for the little dress. 

“Yes, that Miss Snail!” In this respect 
Miss Jane was like that poor King George, 
who showed his antipathies by continually 
miscalling the patronymics of those whom he 
disliked 1 

“So you think. Miss Jane, that it’s wiser 
for Betty to fight it out than — ” 

“Run away?” concluded Betty, standing 
up and holding before Miss Jane’s critical eye 
the sleeve she had finished. 

Miss Jane did not reply at once to Mrs. 
Baird. Her mind was absorbed in her work. 
She turned the dainty sleeve round and round 
and held it off at arm’s length to get the 
full effect. Then she answered antiphonally : 


THE GOODS AND THE PATTERN 209 

“An’ live to fight ’nother day.” 

She always heard what you said, but took 
her own time to answer. Mrs. Baird, who was 
trying to make a remnant of material suit her 
pattern, raising her eyes from her work. 

“There, thank goodness,” she said with a 
sigh of relief, “I have made it fit the pattern 
at last!” 

“ Of course it ’s easy ’nough to lay your 
pattern on a big piece o’ goods, but even ’f 
you have only a remlet you can ’most always 
make it fit the pattern by twisting it this here 
way, then that there way,” observed Miss 
Jane. Then she pointed at the goods with 
her shears. “’Liz’beth, that there remlet ’s 
Miss Smell. Make her fit your pattern. You 
can do it ’f you ’ll go to work and try a bit.” 

“Miss Snell!” Betty did not grasp the 
analogy. 

“Yes, Miss Shell. My idee ’s this. You 
know a good bit about this here decoration 
business. She don’t. She ’s dumm. You 
ain’t. But she has the say. Twist her ’round 
to fit your idees. You mind me, Betty; I ain’t 
sewed fer all Weston fer forty years already 
’thout learnin’ that most goods can be made 


14 


210 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


to fit the pattern T it ’s twisted Tout Tough. 
You twist her.’’ 

‘‘Yes, Miss Jane, but how in the world 
can I twist Miss Snell around to my ideas ? ” 
queried Betty. 

“Easy. Jes’ learn her that your idees is 
money in her pocket. She may like her own 
way, but you see if she don’t like money better.” 

Something in the stiff, lean old figure, sitting 
bolt upright, with the big square-rimmed 
spectacles pushed up on the forehead as Miss 
Jane looked meditatively at her sewing, made 
a lump come to Betty’s throat, and running 
over to her, she threw her arms around her 
and kissed her faded hair. Then plumping 
herself down on the floor beside her, as she 
used to do in Weston, she snuggled close to 
the knees that had held a lapboard so many 
years that they had grown to look not unlike 
one. 

“I’ll try to be a good little pattern. Miss 
Jane,” she said. 

“That’s right, ’Liz’beth.” Miss Jane 
patted the oval pink cheek, while Betty’s 
face grew bright with the comradeship which 
she had always felt with Miss Jane. 


THE GOODS AND THE PATTERN 21 1 


“Mrs. Baird, Betty she looks good to-day, 
ain’t ? ” she said cheerfully. The two women 
had discussed the paleness they had noticed 
in Betty’s face lately. 

“ If Miss Snell would only say when a thing 
is right, it would be easier,” said Betty to Lois, 
who now joined the group and was hemming 
one of her fine napkins. 

“Don’t you ever please her?” asked her 
mother, anxiously. 

“ Oh, I suppose I do, when she does n’t find 
fault with my work.” 

“Well, ain’t that all you need ?” said Miss 
Jane, comfortably. “A body’s expected to do 
right. Right’s part of the bargain, so it ain’t 
spoken of.” 

“At ‘The Pines,”’ spoke up Lois, “we 
thought a girl was mean when she did n’t say 
something nice about our new duds, or when 
we did our part well at an entertainment. 
Only the mean-spirited girls, who watch you 
with cold little eyes and go around by them- 
selves because they can’t find an equal, kept 
quiet. It was in our code of honor to tell a 
girl that she had a laurel wreath on her head 
or some such nonsense. It showed that we 


212 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


were n’t envious and were proud of her. And 
it is n’t so easy either, is it, Bet, to praise 
people ? I had to swallow hard many a time 
before I got it out, when I did n’t like the girl. 
Only those who never try think it’s easy and 
call it flattery.” 

“Huh, life ain’t no high-toned boardin’- 
school,” sniffed Miss Jane. She turned to 
Mrs. Baird as one who had gone, like herself, 
to a sterner school. 

“Now, Lois, we’re snubbed!” cried Betty. 
“ Let ’s bolt before my mother has time to 
answer.” 

Together they ran out and scurried down 
the steps, and the two women soon heard 
them in the drawing-room singing college 
songs, to Betty’s piano accompaniment, Yale 
songs predominating in honor of Dunmore 
Lane. 


XX 

LAURENCE MINTURNe’s STORMY ROW 

T owards evening a sharp southwest 
wind sprang up, swaying the Virginia 
creeper back and forth, strewing the 
floor of the porch with its crimson leaves, 
and turning outward the silver-lined foliage 
of the quivering white poplars. 

Snug in her rain-proof coat, Betty was 
standing at the top of the front steps, with 
one hand resting against the pillar, watching 
the approach of the equinoctial storm prom- 
ised by the heavy clouds, and the rising waves 
on the bay. 

‘‘That looks like a skiff out there, with some 
one in it. He’s having a hard pull,” she 
thought anxiously, and stepped farther out. 

A vivid flash of lightning made her close 
her eyes for a second, then, while the thunder 
was pealing, she ran down to the gate to get 
a better view of the boat and its solitary occu- 


214 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

pant, who was pulling vigorously against the 
beating waves. 

Mrs. Baird, who was closing the windows, 
saw her and called to her to come in out of 
the storm. 

“There ’s a boat in trouble out there,” 
Betty cried, above the storm, and before her 
mother could answer she sped across the road 
to the shore. The oarsman seemed to be 
trying to row towards their wharf, to effect a 
landing, but the force of the wind and the 
waves had now become such that he had to 
give his whole attention to his oars and could 
not make sure of his course. Betty saw that 
he was having a hard struggle. Involuntarily 
she started towards her own skiff, but realized 
at once that it could not live in such a sea, 
even if she had had the strength to handle 
it. Again she looked at the oarsman. 

“ It ’s Mr. Minturne ! ” she exclaimed. Then 
she cried through her hands: “Oh, Mr. Min- 
turne! Laurence! To the right! Farther to 
the right!” 

Her voice, carried by the rushing wind, 
evidently reached him, for he turned his boat 
at once in that direction, and his strokes 


MINTURNE’S STORMY ROW 215 

seemed to have double power. His boat shot 
up over the waves and dipped down into the 
trough at an alarming rate, but he held his 
direction steadily, and in a few minutes was 
out of the worst of the rough water and about 
to come under the lee of the hill. Thinking 
himself safe, he swung his boat around, waved 
a hand to Betty, and called out: “Thank 
you. Miss Baird ! I could n’t — ” 

Just then an extra heavy puff caught his 
boat squarely on the side and completely 
capsized her, tossing Minturne into the water. 
Being a strong swimmer, however, he soon 
landed near Betty, and came out looking for 
all the world like a drowned rat, but without 
his coolness or his courteous manner being 
disturbed in the slightest. 

Laughing heartily, he pulled off his dripping 
hat and bowed profoundly. 

“Really, Miss Baird,” he said, “I must 
apologize most humbly for my old friend, 
Neptune, though his intentions were evidently 
of the best. He wished to cast me at your 
very feet, but timed it badly.” 

Betty joined in his laugh, but broke off 
suddenly. 


21 6 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


“ Oh, Mr. Minturne, you must run up to the 
house as fast as you can and get some dry 
clothes on. Your boat will blow ashore some- 
where in the harbor and we can find it after 
the storm is over. Come on, I’ll race you up 
to the house.” 

Suiting the action to the word, Betty turned 
and flew towards the house, and with his wet 
clothes Minturne found it no easy task to 
keep pace with her. As they reached the 
steps. Doctor Baird, who had seen the last act 
of the incident from his study window, came 
out to meet them and took charge of Mr. 
Minturne. 

Betty met Lois in the hall. 

“Lois, come right upstairs with me,” she 
said in a low voice, her manner tense. 

Together they ran up the stairs to Betty’s 
room. 

“Oh, Lois, I did such an awful, awful 
thing!” cried Betty, throwing herself down 
on the window-seat and burying her crimson 
cheeks in a pillow. “I can never look him in 
the face again 1 ” 

“Whom can’t you look in the face again?” 
asked Lois, lightly. 


MINTURNFS STORMY ROW 217 

“ Mr. Minturne. Oh, Lois, I called him — 
I screamed it out at the top of my voice — I 
just know he heard me — I — ’’ 

‘‘What, Bet? What did you call him? 
What did you scream out?^’ 

“Lois, I called him ‘Laurence’! Yes, 
‘Laurence’ 1 ” 

“Oh, Betty Baird, you didn’t! What a 
joke!” cried Lois, who saw at once the light 
in which it appeared to Betty and might to 
Minturne. 

Again Betty buried her burning face in the 
friendly pillow. 

“Yes, I did! What will he think?” she 
asked in a muffled tone. Then she looked up 
at Lois helplessly. 

Lois leaned back in her chair and fairly 
shrieked with laughter. 

“I can’t understand how you came to do 
it,” she said. “We never call him by his 
Christian name, as we do some people be- 
hind their backs. He ’s so dignified. How 
could you do it!” 

Betty sprang to her feet and moved restlessly 
around the room. 

“Well, I managed to do it!” she answered 


21 8 BETTY BAIRD^S GOLDEN YEAR 


with self-directed irony. “Now I ’ll have to 
snub him.” 

Lois smiled quizzically into her woe-begone 
face. 

“Betty?” 

“Yes? Well, Lois, are you going to help 
me out of this pickle ? ” 

“Betty, did you call him ‘Laurence’ be- 
cause — ” 

“Now you stop !” cried Betty, clapping her 
hand over Lois’s mouth. Then she added: 
“ Oh, of course it was because Miss Minturne 
always calls him — Laurence. That was what 
you were going to say, was n’t it ? ” 

Lois laughed at Betty’s subterfuge and 
shook her head. 

“I won’t say what my ‘because’ was going 
to be, but I think you know that I know.” 

Betty walked to the door. 

“Well, we must go down now and be ready 
to meet him. It will be all right in the morn- 
ing ! I just hope that the storm kept him from 
hearing. Anyway, I have the satisfaction of 
knowing that it was better than the ‘snob.’ 
Lois, dear, don’t you think the storm drowned 
my voice ? ” 



THE GROUP GREETED MINTURNE WITH LAUGHTER, AS 
HE CAME SLOWLY DOWN THE STAIRS — Page 219 


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MINTURNE’S STORMY ROW 219 

“Oh, there is hardly a doubt of that,'’ com- 
forted Lois. “Anyway, I don't think he 'd 
mind ! " she added significantly. 

“ Oh, Lois, you make it all the harder to go 
down. Well, I'll act as if nothing had hap- 
pened. I 'll make him doubt his own ears ! " 

“You can do it, Betty," laughed Lois, add- 
ing to herself: “But I have great faith in 
people hearing what they were not intended 
to hear ! " 

On coming out of Doctor Baird's room, 
Minturne halted a minute at the broad land- 
ing and took in the lively home scene in the 
great hall below him. A cheerful fire crackled 
in the big fireplace. Before it a huge sofa had 
been drawn up cosily, where Betty sat toast- 
ing her feet after her dash in the storm. Lois 
was lighting the candles in the tall Sheffield 
candlesticks, while Edwyna sat in a cavern- 
ous armchair, crooning a lullaby to her doll 
Minerva. 

The group greeted Minturne with laughter, 
as he came slowly down the stairs in Doctor 
Baird's clothes. Both men were six feet tall, 
but Minturne's breadth of shoulders and 
depth of chest made it necessary for him to put 


220 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


on the Doctor’s voluminous quilted dressing- 
jacket, a Chinese creation that had been pre- 
sented to him by a member of his congregation 
when he left Weston. 

Betty jumped up instantly and insisted on his 
taking the warmest corner of the sofa. 

“Now,” she laughed, when he declined to 
sit down, “you may as well make up your 
mind at once to be coddled. Our cook is 
making hot lemonade for you, my mother is 
going through her medicine chest, and Miss 
Jane is upstairs looking for a stick of licorice- 
root. Lois and I are to keep you prisoner 
here by the fire, and Edwyna will bring your 
dinner to you.” 

“I am sure you will find me a very docile 
prisoner,” said Minturne, laughingly submit- 
ting to Betty’s regimen. 

The door opened, and Katie appeared, with 
a great look of importance on her broad, 
beaming face, bearing a big Canton bowl 
filled with steaming lemonade, which she 
ladled out impartially to Betty and Minturne. 

“Oh, Katie, aren’t you going to give me 
some too ?” protested Lois, who had just come 
in from lighting the lamps. 


MINTURNE’S STORMY ROW 221 


“Sure I is, honey. You jess wait til I get 
some more ob dem cups.’’ 

“I’ll get them, Katie,” cried Edwyna, hurry- 
ing after the old cook. 

Sitting around the fire, they were all sipping 
their lemonade when Miss Jane came briskly 
down the steps. Rummaging in her reticule, 
she drew out a long stick of licorice-root. 

“Now you jes’ go to work and suck this 
here lic’rish-root,” she said, bending over 
Minturne solicitously, for Miss Jane was as 
good a nurse as she was a seamstress. 

A dubious look came into his eyes, but van- 
ished at once as he took the root. 

“Oh, thank you. Miss Hufnagel. I have n’t 
had a piece of this since I was a boy. I am 
familiar with its remedial qualities. I’ll save 
it till later, as I’ve just been drinking lem- 
onade,” he replied, slipping it skilfully but 
determinedly into the pocket of the dressing- 
jacket. 

Betty and Lois, who were standing by with 
their arms around each other, could hardly 
keep their faces straight. Miss Jane went 
absent-mindedly up the stairs, returning in a 
minute with a handful of hoarhound drops. 


222 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


“I heard you coughin’, ain’t, Mr. Minturne ? 
Now you jes’ suck them hoarhound drops. 
Them ’s better ’n anything else fer a cough.” 

“Oh, Miss Jane, I’m afraid he’ll spoil his 
appetite for dinner,” expostulated Betty. 

“Well, it’s good to have ’em handy,” re- 
plied Miss Jane, as she saw Minturne put 
them into the pocket with the licorice-root. 
“Now I’ll go and see if I can help your Ma 
about supper.” 

Almost immediately Katie announced that 
dinner was served, and soon they were all 
seated around what seemed to Minturne one 
of the pleasantest dinner tables it had ever been 
his good fortune to sit down to. 

In the evening, the storm having passed 
over. Jack and Dunny appeared. Minturne 
was still the heroic invalid of the occasion, 
for Miss Jane firmly believed that such a 
dripping would certainly be followed by seri- 
ous sickness unless her remedies were applied 
constantly. Betty took advantage of this 
coddling. With eyes twinkling, she turned 
to Miss Jane. 

“Miss Jane, I am very much afraid that Mr. 
Minturne will have a bad attack of sore throat 


MINTURNE’S STORMY ROW 223 

from this exposure/’ She knew Miss Jane’s 
one and infallible remedy. 

“That ’s so, ’Liz’beth. A strip o’ red flan- 
nen ’round his neck ’ll prevent that.” 

Mr. Minturne demurred vigorously, though 
with his usual courtesy, giving Betty a look 
that begged for mercy. 

“A ounce o’ prevention, young man, is 
worth a pound o’ cure, ain’t, Betty ? ” insisted 
Miss Jane, crisply. 

“ I advise you to put it on, Mr. Minturne,” 
said Betty, with a mischievous smile. 

A pleasant thought seemed to decide Min- 
turne, and he replied: 

“I shall be delighted to wear it. Miss Jane.” 

When Miss Jane appeared with the long 
strip of red flannel in her hand Minturne 
stepped forward with the air of a courtier 
and took it. 

“Now, Miss Betty,” he said, with a trium- 
phant twinkle in his eye, though his manner 
was perfectly grave, “of course you will put 
this round my neck, since you are so familiar 
with its use.” 

Nonplussed, Betty involuntarily stepped 
back. 


224 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

“Come, Betty, don’t back out that way,” 
said Jack, laughing at the point Minturne 
had scored. 

“Just imagine you ’re pinning your favor 
on your knight’s arm,” suggested Lois, teas- 
ingly. 

“You know it must be soaked in kerosene 
first, mustn’t it. Miss Jane?” said Betty, 
hurriedly, blushing at Lois’s words, and seek- 
ing a way out of the predicament. 

“Oh, if that’s the case,” said Minturne, 
smiling, “I ’ll put this in my pocket, as I 
really don’t want to be driven out of this 
charming assembly.” The red flannel rag 
went to keep company with the licorice-root 
and the hoarhound drops. 

To Betty’s relief, Edwyna appeared with a 
basket, almost as big as herself, filled with 
golden pippins, which she distributed to the 
party. All at once began to tell their for- 
tunes with the seeds, and the merry chatter 
continued until Jack sat down at the piano 
and began to pound out, in a manner truly 
masculine, the strains of a popular waltz. In 
a minute the chairs were pushed back and 
the others were swinging round the room. By 


MINTURNE’S STORMY ROW 225 

and by the piano stopped suddenly, and Jack 
called out: 

“Now, Minturne, it’s your turn to grind 
out some music.” 

Minturne quickly took his place and, with 
much skill, played a number of two-steps and 
waltzes. Then, on his part, he stopped as 
abruptly as Jack had done, saying: 

“Now I must have a dance with Miss Byrd. 
Lane, it’s your turn to be the orchestra.” 

“Thank heaven, I can’t play a note,” re- 
plied Dunny. “Jack ’ll play some more. You 
may have Lois. I ’ll take a turn with Betty.” 

Minturne went up to Lois, who, warm and 
breathless, was fanning herself vigorously, but 
was quite ready for another dance. Dunny re- 
signed her to his care, and he and Betty stepped 
out as Jack struck up a spirited waltz. 

“I say, I’m getting more than my share of 
this. There is n’t much fun in it for me,” 
Jack cried, after a time, wheeling round and 
facing the dancers. 

They all strolled back to the fire in the hall, 
and clustered round it, regaling themselves 
with apples and freshly baked gingersnaps 
which old Katie had smuggled in while they 
*5 


226 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


were dancing. Doctor Baird had gone to his 
study, and Mrs. Baird and Miss Jane, who 
had disappeared early in the evening to over- 
see some household affairs, now came in and 
joined the group. 

Miss Jane said she felt chilly after being in 
the hot kitchen, and Betty offered to go up- 
stairs for her white knitted shawl to throw 
over her shoulders. Taking up the silver 
candlestick that stood on tjie hall table, she 
held it out for Jack to light, then tripped 
lightly up the low steps. At the landing she 
turned and paused a moment, looking down, 
the flickering candle lighting up her face, 
throwing the smiling eyes into thoughtful 
shadows and burnishing the loose golden hair. 
Her slim figure, in its white flannel gown, 
stood out girlish and spirited against the 
shadows on the green wall behind. 

Mrs. Baird’s glance had followed Betty, and 
when she turned away, it casually met Min- 
turne’s. The look in his frank blue eyes made 
her draw a quick breath. But it was all over 
in a moment, and she could only hope that she 
had imagined the depth of their expression. 


XXI 

MRS. LELECHE HAS HER SAY 

S EVERAL days later, Mrs. LeLeche came 
from her country-place to look over the 
plans for her city house that Miss Min- 
turne and Betty had sketched out a month 
or so earlier. She was anxious to have the 
work done before winter, and had consulted 
Miss Minturne about the color scheme and 
furnishings; but the completed plan had just 
been finished by Betty the day that Miss Snell 
determined to assert her undivided authority 
by detailing the work to Miss Rutter. 

Miss Snell, though autocratic and domi- 
neering, had a bully’s instinct to toady those 
who were superior in strength of any kind. 
She bowed especially to wealth, and that 
Mrs. LeLeche not only had in abundance, but 
those rare concomitants, refinement and good 
taste. 


2 28 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


Mrs. LeLeche, too, liked her own way, and 
she usually gained it by her suavity and tact, 
to say nothing of her money. To-day she met 
Miss Snell pleasantly and began to congratu- 
late her on succeeding Mrs. Anstice. It was 
such a privilege, she said, to have a gentle- 
woman like Miss Minturne to suggest and 
help in one’s decorative difficulties. 

As Mrs. LeLeche’s smile and manner indi- 
cated that she believed the gentle “privilege” 
had been transferred to Miss Minturne’s suc- 
cessor, Miss Snell could smile and nod most 
affably, even while she felt cold towards the 
praise of her still dominant predecessor. 

After the civilities of the introduction had 
been gracefully and sufficiently prolonged, 
Mrs. LeLeche inquired for Miss Minturne’s 
sketch of her ideas for the house. 

“I am very sorry, Mrs. LeLeche, but my 
assistant has not quite completed the plans. 
You ’ll be delighted with Miss Rutter, I ’m 
sure. She ’s so recherche, so artistic, so — ” 
“Pardon me,” interrupted Mrs. LeLeche, 
not at all interested in a catalogue of Miss 
Rutter’s gifts, but greatly so in having her 
house ready by a certain date, “I saw a rough 


MRS. LELECHE HAS HER SAY 229 

copy of our ideas, and I understood that they 
would be finished yesterday."’ Her tone and 
manner clearly showed displeasure. 

“I am so sorry, but you know, coming 
into a large establishment like this, it takes 
time — ” began Miss Snell, placatingly. 

“Of course,” again interrupted Mrs. Le- 
Leche, looking at the clock, “but I can’t wait 
to-day. I’ll be satisfied with another look at 
the sketch Miss Minturne made out. She had 
a young friend with her who comprehended 
our ideas perfectly. Has she gone?” 

Miss Snell involuntarily stiffened up. 

“Miss Baird?” 

“Yes, Miss Baird. A charming girl ! — and 
very bright.” 

Miss Snell hesitated, but Mrs. LeLeche’s 
second impatient look at the clock, and the 
vision of the large check she would receive for 
the work, decided her, and she hurried off for 
Betty and her plan. 

Betty quickly followed Miss Snell to the re- 
ception-room. Mrs. LeLeche greeted her with 
marked warmth, inquiring after Miss Min- 
turne affectionately. Then she took the plans 
and studied them attentively, asking many 


230 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

questions, which Betty answered succinctly 
and in a way that evidently pleased Mrs. 
LeLeche. She had some minor changes to 
suggest, but in general the plans evidently had 
her entire approval. She turned to Miss Snell. • 
‘‘My house has been delayed somewhat, and 
I can’t say just now when you can begin the 
decorating, but I shall let you know at the 
earliest moment, and I hope you will hasten 
the work as much as possible.” 

She moved towards the door, but Miss Snell 
reached out and almost took hold of her arm 
in her eagerness to detain her. 

“ Please excuse me, Mrs. LeLeche, but could 
you wait just a minute? My assistant. Miss 
Rutter, has made a sketch which she would be 
glad of an opportunity to submit to you. You 
will like it, I am sure, perhaps better — ” 

Miss Snell stopped, not knowing exactly how 
far she might go. 

Mrs. LeLeche looked at her in surprise, but 
being a reader of human nature, she at once 
divined Miss Snell’s motive. She was not an 
organizer of charities and a social leader with- 
out having gained an insight into the cause 
that now made Miss Snell’s face so red. She 


MRS. LELECHE HAS HER SAY 231 

glanced at Betty, too, and thought she read in 
her eyes an eagerness for the very comparison 
of plans which Miss Snell urged. 

Betty, in fact, was longing for just this 
experiment. Confidence in the thoroughness 
of the training she had received, first with 
Miss Greene, then with Miss Minturne, gave 
her assurance of the outcome. Moreover, as 
she told Lois, she ‘‘felt it in her bones ’’ that 
if she could once show Miss Snell that her 
work was of money value to her, as Miss Jane 
had suggested. Miss Snell was anxious enough 
to build up her business to hide her jealousy 
of Miss Minturne and her dislike for Betty 
herself. 

Mrs. LeLeche turned to Miss Snell. 

“I shall be very glad to see a better set of 
plans if you have them. Please ask Miss 
Rutter to bring them.” 

Miss Rutter came in at once and fluently 
explained her plans, and Mrs. LeLeche lis- 
tened courteously. Then she bowed to Miss 
Snell. 

“I thank you. Miss Snell. A comparison is 
often excellent for throwing light on a subject, 
though I had, through our friend. Miss Min- 


232 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

turne ” — she glanced brightly at Betty, — 
“sufficient to guide me. But now, Miss Baird, 
I am convinced that you know exactly what I 
want, and I shall write to you about beginning 
the work at the first opportunity. Thank you 
again. Miss Snell, for your efforts, but please 
go to no further trouble. Miss Baird under- 
stands perfectly, and I shall want her to have 
immediate charge of the work.” 

She bowed again to Miss Snell, shook hands 
cordially with Betty, and walked out quickly. 

That evening Betty dragged Lois off to the 
little bridge over the mill-pond flood gate, and 
sitting on the big log that ran as a string piece 
along one side, she reviewed the day. 

“I tell you, Lois, I felt like Fortune carrying 
her cornucopia when I left the room with 
my rolled-up sketch. Accepted ! I could see 
Peac.e and Prosperity coming to the worthy 
Baird family! I thought that I could just 
shake that cornucopia a little, and the mort- 
gage money, new house paint, winter clothes, 
etc., etc., would roll comfortably out on the 
floor. And oh, Lois, I did want to run to 
Miss Minturne and hug her and thank her!” 

Betty’s voice trembled, and she hastily 


MRS. LELECHE HAS HER SAY 233 

dabbed her handkerchief to her wet, smiling 
eyes. 

‘‘She ’ll soon be back. A year passes very 
quickly,” comforted Lois. 

Betty started up. 

“Why, the idea of my complaining because 
it ’s all so different now ! I ought to be thank- 
ful, and I am, for that beautiful year with 
Miss Minturne.” 

“Her letters are awfully happy, are n’t they ? 
Her last one just rang with joy.” 

“Yes. I do hope, though, when our time 
comes, we won’t have all the trouble she had.” 

“ ‘ When our time comes ! ’ Betty, you ’re so 
funny! Often I can’t tell whether you are 
talking about love or death.” 

“Well, I can’t complain about the same in- 
definiteness in your language, Miss Lois 
Byrd!” 

Lois blushed self-consciously but happily. 
“And if I ’m not blind. Lady Betty, your lan- 
guage will not long remain — ” Then she re- 
verted to the old subject. 

“I suppose, Betty, now that you have come 
out on top, you will stay on with Miss Snell.” 

“Yes, of course. I don’t believe she would 


234 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

give me up now. And I can’t, for the life of 
me, dislike her heartily, for somehow I under- 
stand why she is as she is. It must have been 
hard for her to know that every one around 
was mentally comparing her with Miss Min- 
turne, to her disadvantage,” added Betty, 
justly. 

“You know that dear Mother Baird said 
that when you attacked a fault like resent- 
ment, you would stir up a hornet’s nest. It 
does seem as if this trouble with Miss Snell 
came as a kind of test. You don’t seem nearly 
so cross with her as you did with poor old 
Mr. Webbie.” 

Betty clapped her hands. 

“Oh, good! Do you really think so? I 
hope I am not. Maybe I am going to have a 
Golden Year. You dear thing, you have n’t 
any uglinesses to overcome. Lucky Dunny 
Lane!” 


XXII 

THE CITY HISTORY CLUB VISITS NEW YORK 



DWYNA’S shrewd prophecy that ‘*Mr. 
Brooks would take them to New 
York in his automobile ’’ was quickly 


fulfilled. 

“I am going to take those budding histori- 
ographers of yours to New York on Christmas 
Eve on a spree/’ began Jack, who had met 
Betty and her father at the station and was 
taking them home in his car. 

They were rolling along slowly and gently, 
and Jack emphasized his determination by 
honking terrifically at an inoffensive dog that 
had strayed into the road. 

“A spree ! My serious City History Club !” 

“Well, then, call it a pilgrimage,” Jack com- 
promised, when he found himself master of a 
long stretch where he “let her out a few 
notches,” as he said, and Betty had to grab 
hastily at her hat. 


236 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

“I’ll take them over to New York and show 
them all the history that’s good for youngsters 
of their tender years. My mother will go, and 
we’ll have a bully luncheon at a terribly his- 
torical house I know of, for of course you his- 
tory sharps would n’t eat in any other kind of 
a place.” 

“Oh, that’s just the thing! How kind you 
are. Jack!” cried Betty, above the whistling 
of the wind in their ears. “ But do take us to 
the places on our list, for Craig has made out 
a perfect itinerary for us.” 

“ Dunny ’ll have to run an annex with his 
car. I can’t carry more than ten in mine, and 
they ’ll be rather snug at that.” 

“As long as we don’t crowd your mother, 
the more the merrier. I do wish we could 
take at least one poor child who does n’t have 
‘sprees ’ at Christmas time. Why not John’s 
Lydia and Dorcas?” 

“That’d be jolly. That Lydia’s a brick. 
I know from that red crop of hers.” 

“I’m afraid to tell Edwyna that we’re 
going. She won’t sleep a wink to-night, for 
she’s Corresponding Secretary of the Club 
and she’ll have to send out all the notices.” 


HISTORY CLUB VISITS NEW YORK 237 

‘‘Will she worry about it?” asked Jack, 
solicitously, for he was really very fond of 
Edwyna, who, in turn, adored him. 

“Worry about it? Gracious, no! She’ll 
be too puffed up with pride to sleep. She’ll 
lie awake composing them.” 

The next day Edwyna held supreme occu- 
pancy in the book-room. Her small glossy 
black head, bent resolutely over a sheet of 
notepaper, was turned at frequent intervals to 
a small book which lay open before her. Its 
title was “The Gentleman and Lady’s Book 
of Politeness and Propriety of Deportment.” 
It once held a prominent place in Betty’s 
grandmother’s bookcase, but Edwyna was 
blissfully unconscious of its antiquity; with 
such a well of courtesy to draw from she felt 
fully equal to the requirements of her lofty 
position as the Corresponding Secretary of 
the City History Club. 

At first Betty had thought of writing out 
an invitation to the Christmas Eve automobile 
party for her to copy, but she and Lois had de- 
cided that as Edwyna had schemed for the office 
it would be as well to allow her to have some of 
its burdens, for so far it had been a sinecure. 


238 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Her first note was to Christine, her favorite. 
Christine was three years older than herself, 
but Edwyna could n’t see why she should n’t 
be paired off with her, instead of always with 
that little Dottie, who was three years younger. 
In a postscript, she asked Christine to be sure 
to save her a seat beside her in the car. 

Edwyna had felt no uneasiness over her re- 
sponsibility. She knew how to write an ex- 
cellent note, but now she wished to excel all 
past triumphs. Hence her draughts on “The 
Book of Politeness.” Meditatively she chewed 
the end of her penholder. 

“If I had n’t stood up for my rights, they’d 
never have had a Corresponding Secretary,” 
she said to herself. “Now I’ll show ’em what 
they ’d have missed.” 

When Betty reached home, she was met at 
the door by Edwyna, whose face was flushed 
and preoccupied. She pulled Betty at once 
into the book-room. She was holding the old 
book, with a forefinger stuck in it to mark a 
place. 

“I ’ve been writing the notices.” She 
pointed proudly with the book towards the 
snowy heap on the desk. “I ’ve written to 


HISTORY CLUB VISITS NEW YORK 239 

every single member of the Club. But Fm 
not sure where to date Dottie’s letter. She’s 
so young.” 

Betty looked puzzled. 

“Just as you did the others — ” 

“Oh, no!” Edwyna exclaimed, opening the 
book and holding it before Betty, with her 
finger marking the passage. “It says: ‘The 
date of a letter may be at the beginning when 
we write to an equal; but in writing to a 
superior, it should be at the end.’ All my 
dates are at the beginning. Cousin Betty, but 
Dottie’s younger than I am, and she can’t 
read or write, and I don’t know where to date 
her letter.” 

Betty could n’t keep her face straight any 
longer and burst out laughing. 

“Oh, Edwyna, what would I do without 
you 1 ” she cried, throwing her arms round the 
important little figure. 

“I don’t see anything to laugh about,” 
pouted Edwyna, who felt pretty sure that 
Betty was laughing at her. Still intent on her 
work, she drew out of Betty’s arms. 

“I’m laughing because you’re the joy of 
my life 1” 


240 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Edwyna looked darkly and critically at the 
old book of politeness, but would not deign to 
question Betty further. After Betty left the 
room she sat curled up in the big chair and 
pondered over it deeply. 

“I don’t know why Cousin Betty laughed, 
but I won’t put any date on Dottie’s letter,” 
was her conclusion. 

The notices were duly sent out and the 
Club met at the appointed hour. Not a 
member was absent, and John’s girls ran 
through the gate long before any one was 
ready. 

Jack and Dunmore came up in their cars 
in high feather, as though they were going to 
a game between their rival ’varsity football 
teams. 

Craig brought his little sister over; his was 
the only studious face in that merry, moving 
group. He carried a threateningly large roll 
of paper, and his list of historical places in 
New York surprised even Mrs. Brooks, Daugh- 
ter of the Revolution though she was, to say 
nothing of being a Colonial Dame. 

Betty remonstrated a little on its erudite 
contents. 


HISTORY CLUB VISITS NEW YORK 241 

‘‘But this is the chance of a lifetime for 
most of these children,” he protested earnestly. 

“I know, Craig, but these sweet infants 
are n’t working for a degree in history, as you 
are. Besides, as Sir Walter says — ” 

“Ah, Dunny, now you will hear the true 
inwardness of this abstruse problem. To 
study history, or not to study it, that ’s the 
question,” interrupted Jack. 

“Hear! hear!” applauded Dunny. 

“I am perfectly delighted to see such en- 
thusiasm over one of the greatest of men,” 
and Betty turned with much manner to the 
cheering boys. 

“Stung!” hissed Jack. 

“As I was about to remark,” resumed 
Betty, turning her back on them and address- 
ing herself to Craig, “ he says he does n’t so 
much approve of tasks and set hours for seri- 
ous reading as of the plan of endeavoring to 
give a taste for history to the youths them- 
selves.” Betty waved airily towards Jack 
and Dunny. 

“Stung again !” they exclaimed in a breath, 
beating their chests tragically. 

“That ’s all very well, but these youngsters 

16 


242 BETTY BAIRD^S GOLDEN YEAR 

ought n’t to miss this rare chance to learn 
something,” grumbled Craig, for to learn was 
the aim of his life. 

The children tumbled headlong into the 
two great cars in a gale of merriment and 
chattering. Mrs. Brooks’s presence did not 
awe them into silence, for she entered wholly 
into their larkish little journey. 

For the first few miles every passer-by 
smiled on them as though in benediction. 
Heads were turned to look after them, and 
very often peals of laughter seemed to follow. 
Before long Jack, instead of giving back his 
usually friendly smile, began to frown down 
on the pedestrians, who looked up at them so 
cheerily then followed them with mocking 
laughter, as it appeared. The Brooks had 
not, as a rule, found their big machine the 
cause of any but speculative or perhaps 
anxious looks as they drove through the 
village. 

“We seem to be furnishing the public with 
a good deal of fun, some way or other,” he 
said to Betty, as two men stopped abruptly 
and, on looking after them, hooted loudly. 

“People are naturally benevolent. Jack, 


HISTORY CLUB VISITS NEW YORK 243 

and love to see children having a good 
time.’’ 

“We’re all laughing, and it’s contagious,” 
said Mrs. Brooks, looking round on the 
bright young faces. 

“It’s mighty curious,” said Jack, as a 
group of boys pointed after them and jeered 
as they flew by. 

After another mile or two Jack brought his 
car to a standstill. 

“I’ll bet a cent that that kid brother of 
mine has been putting up something on us. 
He wanted to come along and I would n’t let 
him,” he said, as he jumped down and walked 
around the car, examining it carefully. 

“Confound that little rascal!” they heard 
him exclaim vigorously under his breath. 

“What is it. Jack?” his mother called out 
anxiously. 

“ Look at this, will you ? ” He came around 
the car, holding up a huge white placard, on 
which was printed in big inky letters: 

SEEING NEW YORK! 

50 c. 

JACK BROOKS, CHAUFFEUR. 


244 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

‘‘That’s why your dear benevolent people 
laughed at your children who were having 
such a good time!” said Jack, upbraiding 
Betty laughingly, throwing the torn pieces of 
card into the road. 

Once started, the Club could not stop laugh- 
ing. They kept nudging each other, and one 
could not look into another’s eyes without 
causing them all to break into a series of 
giggles. Then Edwyna would poke her 
finger at Jack’s back, and off they would all 
go again. 

It was a happy party. The dry, crisp air 
whipped the color into their cheeks, and 
their eyes danced and sparkled as farmhouses, 
telegraph poles, wayside inns, and railroad 
stations flew by in bewildering succession. 
No one who looked at them could doubt that 
it was Christmas Eve. 

At the ferry in Long Island City they 
stopped to wait for Dunny to come up with 
the remainder of the Club and Miss Jane. 
They were engrossed with the frantic efforts 
of two great draught horses to pull a heavily 
loaded truck out of a rut, when they were re- 
called by hearing their names. 


HISTORY CLUB VISITS NEW YORK 245 

“ Oh, Edwyna ! Christine ! Marybelle ! 
Phyllis!” 

Turning, they saw Dunny’s car bearing 
down on them. Miss Jane was sitting proudly 
erect beside Dunny, while the remainder of 
the Club members were standing up and wav- 
ing hats, muffs, and handkerchiefs. 

Jack’s young passengers sprang to their feet 
and waved frantically in response, while Ed- 
wyna screamed: 

‘‘Oh, we beat you, we beat you! We got 
here long ago ! ” 

The car glided up beside their own, and 
while they stood there waiting for the boat to 
come in, the two parties of girls chattered, all 
at once and all at the top of their voices, about 
the exciting incidents of their ride. Their 
elders talked more quietly, perhaps, but not 
less happily. 

“My, but these here kerriges cert’n’y goes !” 
said Miss Jane to Mrs. Brooks, in a burst of 
enthusiasm that made Betty and Lois look at 
each other in wonder. “An’ w’ile we was 
scootin’ along there so fast it a’most took the 
hair off my head, I do declare it did n’t make no 
more noise ’n my old Singer sewin’ machine!” 


246 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

After crossing the ferry, the party drove 
to the home of Margaret Weldon, Phyllis’s 
cousin. She had spent the preceding summer 
in Hobart, and had helped the Club in their 
historical studies. The tall, bright-faced girl 
was standing at one of the long windows of 
the brown stone house, with hat and coat on, 
and evidently waiting impatiently for the girls. 
As soon as the cars swung up to the curb, she 
flew out of the door and sprang into Jack’s 
car, amid the greetings of the party. 

“Where away first, Craig?” called Jack. 

“To St. Mark’s Church, Tenth Street and 
Second Avenue,” answered Craig. “We ’ll 
go there and have a look at old Peter Stuy- 
vesant’s grave. Then from there we ’ll work 
downwards, finishing at the Battery. Of 
course we can see very few places in part of 
one day, and these I have noted, with our 
luncheon, will take about all the time we have 
before the Children’s Festival Service at Old 
Trinity. So start us off.” 

Quickly they rolled down-town, until they 
reached St. Mark’s, where the children read, 
with much curiosity, the tablet which related 
that 


HISTORY CLUB VISITS NEW YORK 247 

‘‘ In this vault lies buried 
Petrus Stuyvesant, 

Late Captain-general and Governor in Chief 
of Amsterdam in New Netherland 
now called New York 

and the Dutch West India Islands. Died in A. D. 1671 /2 
Aged 80 years.” 

From there the Club ran over to see the 
New York Society Library, said to be the 
oldest library in America. It was chartered 
by George III in 1772. 

“New York city is a city of changes,’’ said 
Craig, “but this library never changes — un- 
less it has to. It has been in this building for 
fifty years, and you will, I think, find it very 
quaint and interesting.” 

“Why is it called a Society Library, Mr. 
Ellsworth?” asked Edwyna. “Is it only for 
society people ? ” 

“ It sounds that way, does n’t it ? But 
when it was started, ‘ Society’ meant only an 
organized company. Yet for many years it 
was really one of the social centres of the city. 
The fine old gentlemen of a generation or two 
ago used to meet here regularly to discuss the 
topics of the day. And I believe the ladies, 
too, met here frequently for social intercourse. 


248 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

and even, it is said — let me whisper it — for 
gossip 

Laughing at Craig’s simulated horror, they 
passed into the staid old building. When they 
came out, some minutes later, the little girls 
raced down the steps and piled into the cars, 
with cries for the next stopping place. 

This proved to be City Hall Park, where 
they drew up in front of the statue of Nathan 
Hale, and Craig told them briefly the story 
of that martyr. Then springing out of the 
cars, they walked sedately up to the City Hall, 
where he drew their attention to a tablet, 
which they read with awe, uniting, as it did, 
the name of Gen. George Washington with 
The Declaration of Independence. 

Near this spot in the presence of 
Gen. George Washington 
The Declaration of 
Independence 
was read and published 
to the 

American Army 
July 9th, 1776.” 

Across the street, on one of the walls of the 
post-office building, they found another tablet. 


HISTORY CLUB VISITS NEW YORK 249 

which told of the liberty pole that stood near 
that spot from 1766 to 1776. This pole was 
the cause of frequent conflicts between the 
Tories and the Sons of Liberty, and in defence 
of it the first martyr blood of the Revolution 
was shed in what was called the battle of 
Golden Hill. 

The next stop in the excursion was at Bowl- 
ing Green. Here Craig explained its use for 
the village sports in the early days, and told 
them that the iron railing surrounding it was 
set up in 1771. 

“Those posts have had their heads knocked 
off,’’ commented Marybelle. 

“I imagine you don’t know that you ’re 
speaking the exact truth,” laughed Craig, 
“for those posts had heads. The fence was 
brought here from England, and the heads 
represented the members of the royal family. 
They were knocked off by the patriots during 
the Revolution, and the lead statue of King 
George III, which stood within the enclosure, 
was broken up and used to make bullets for 
our army. But it ’s getting rather late,” he 
continued,“ and I think we ’d better go to one 
place more, Fraunces’s Tavern j then have our 


250 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

luncheon. After that we ’II go to St. Paul’s 
and then we ’ll have time to look around at 
Old Trinity before the children’s service 
begins.” 

They spent some minutes examining the cel- 
ebrated Fraunces’s Tavern, which Washington 
made his headquarters in 1776 and where he 
delivered his farewell address to his generals 
in 1783, then went for their luncheon. 

“Ho for St. Paul’s!” cried Craig, when 
they had finished. 

“Now you ’ll see the Prince of Wales’s feath- 
ers on the old pulpit,” said Betty to Phyllis. 

“Oh!” exclaimed several of the girls, “do 
you think they will let us sit in Washington’s 
pew?” 

“We ’ll try it, anyhow,” smiled Mrs. Brooks. 
“If they charge us, we can do as General 
Washington did when confronted by an over- 
whelming force, — beat a masterly retreat. 
But who could resist such sweet things as you 
children 1 ” 

Not daring to whisper, hardly daring to 
breathe, the girls tiptoed into what Craig had 
told them was “the only surviving ecclesias- 
tical relic of the colonial era in the city,” and 


HISTORY CLUB VISITS NEW YORK 251 

sat reverently in Washington’s pew. To their 
delight no one disturbed them, and some of 
them closed their eyes and tried to imagine 
the grave, dignified figure of the Father of 
their country at their side. Then they ex- 
amined attentively the monument to General 
Montgomery, who, they had learned, fell 
before Quebec, in 1775, crying to his troops: 
“Men of New York, you will not fail to follow 
where your general leads ! ” 

From St. Paul’s they went down Broadway 
to Old Trinity. As they entered the church- 
yard, Craig stopped them for a moment and 
called their attention to Wall Street, explaining 
that it took its name from a wall that had once 
been there to protect the little village from the 
Indians. Then turning to the church, he 
continued : 

“Trinity Parish is very old and has had 
a great influence on the history of the city. 
Rector Street is named after its rectors, Vesey 
Street after its first rector, Barclay after the 
second, while Varick, Clarkson, Desbrosses, 
Morris, Ludlow, Duane, and Harrison streets, 
and others, were named after wardens and 
vestrymen.” 


252 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

‘‘Aren’t those sycamores beautiful!” ex- 
claimed Betty as they walked through the 
churchyard. “And all of it is so picturesque 1” 

Craig pointed out some of the quaint and 
curious epitaphs, as well as the graves of 
William Bradford, the first printer in the 
colony; Alexander Hamilton, soldier, states- 
man, and patriot; and of Captain James 
Lawrence, commander of the frigate “ Chesa- 
peake,” who was killed in the battle with the 
British frigate “ Shannon.” 

“He’s the one who cried ‘Don’t give up the 
ship ! ’ when he was dying,” whispered Chris- 
tine to Phyllis. 

Phyllis nodded her head and gazed with 
deepening awe at the tomb of the hero. 

The great organ was thundering with all its 
power when the Club filed in and took seats 
on the side aisle, well towards the front. The 
church was in its Christmas mood, the pillars 
enwreathed in greens, while the candles on the 
altar gleamed mysteriously through the gather- 
ing twilight. 

Presently the organ gave forth the tune of 
the processional hymn, and the procession ap- 
peared. In the lead came the verger, bearing 


HISTORY CLUB VISITS NEW YORK 253 

his staff, according to the quaint old English 
custom. Behind him were two trumpeters, 
leading the vested choir and the Sunday- 
school in singing “Once in Royal David’s 
City.” 

The Club members joined heartily in all of 
the service, but especially in the carol, that 
seemed to be the favorite with the Sunday- 
school : 

“ The snow lay on the ground, 

The stars shone bright. 

When Christ our Lord was born 
On Christmas night. 

When Christ our Lord was born 
On Christmas night. 

Venite adoremus, Dominum. 

Venite adoremus, Dominum. 

Venite adoremus, Dominum.” 

The beautiful festival closed with the reces- 
sional, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and 
then the Club members followed the Sunday- 
school in the Visit to the Manger, a realistic 
representation of the birthplace of the Saviour 
at the front of the church. 


XXIII 

CHRISTMAS EVE 

J ACK and Dunny ‘‘hit ’er up’’ just a little 
on the way back to Hobart, and they 
arrived in plenty of time to dress for 
dinner. 

“Let us have a quiet, old-time sort of an 
Eve,” Betty proposed, as she and Lois were 
trying to answer each other’s question as to 
“what we shall do this evening.” 

“I think there is more sweetness in Christ- 
mas Eve than any other part of the year,” 
Lois said thoughtfully; adding, “and joy, too, 
only the deep, quiet kind.” 

“To have our friends around us is enough,” 
Betty replied, while trying to keep out of her 
voice the sadness she felt at the thought that 
this would be the last Christmas of the old 
kind, the kind they had spent together for 
five years, — not a short period to them out 


CHRISTMAS EVE 


255 

of their eighteen or nineteen. Next year Lois 
would be married ! 

The great beautiful hall would inspire 
Christmas festivities, with its Revolutionary 
panelled wainscot, white-painted, the tall can- 
dles in the heavy brass sconces above the deep 
moulding lighting the few stately pictures, 
festooned with holly and mistletoe. 

By the broad hearth, where John had piled 
logs of resinous pine and fragrant hickory, 
stood mimic pines in squat terra-cotta bowls. 
A gate-table was drawn cosily up by the deep 
old sofa before the fire, reflecting on its polished 
surface its load of apples, oranges, grapes, 
nuts, cakes, and candies. 

‘‘Oh, Lois, do please stand still a mo- 
ment ! ’’ cried Betty, as Lois was coming slowly 
down the broad steps and looking around 
at the charming picture the hall presented. 
“You have stepped right out of a Sir Joshua 
Reynolds! Your dark hair with that red 
rose, those gold buckles on your slippers, 
your eyes shining like stars, and that perfect 
soft shimmery Worthy trailing gown, just like 
a pale rose itself! Mother, isn’t she the 
prettiest thing!” 


256 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

“Indeed she is!” agreed Mrs. Baird, as 
she drew Betty to her side and smiled lov- 
ingly at her “other daughter,” as she called 
Lois. 

“‘Purty is as purty does,’” quoted Miss 
Jane, crisply. Her code allowed no compli- 
ments to the face. Then she looked at Betty, 
and knowing that no vanity had so far spoiled 
her pet, she added, in a brusque voice, “I 
cal’late them two youngsters is purty well 
mated.” 

“What!” exclaimed Betty, dramatically. 
“ Do I hear a compliment, wrapped, it is true, 
in a very stern voice? But I can break the 
shell, like a black walnut, and get the meat 
within.” 

“Now may I come down?” asked Lois, in 
a small, patient tone, as of one who had been 
“looking pleasant” for a long time. 

“Wait, Lois, until I whisk this dust cloth 
out of sight. It spoils the picture. There, 
now you may come down!” 

Then humming “Hail to the Chief!” she 
stepped up and gallantly led Lois to the hearth. 

Betty’s pretty white French flannel, relieved 
at times by her summer silk, had to do service 


CHRISTMAS EVE 


257 


on all such occasions. To-night she had 
allowed herself a few picturesque touches in 
harmony with the day. In the firelight, her 
hair shone like burnished copper, and the 
bunch of crimson holly berries, backed by 
their polished leaves, only added a deeper 
tone. Around her neck hung the handsome 
string of gold beads that had once graced her 
Grandmother Seabury’s “swan-like neck,’’ 
and now supported a rare and exquisite 
miniature of the Madonna set in a lovely gold 
frame, sent as a Christmas gift from Rome by 
Mr. and Mrs. Anstice. The big bows on her 
dainty high instep gave a natty touch to her 
appearance. 

“Mother, I’ve dusted this table at least five 
times, otherwise — ” She broke off abruptly 
as she glanced around the hall. “Oh, isn’t 
this a love of a home ! And absolutely perfect 
for Christmas ! ” 

“Cousin Betty! Cousin Betty! It ’s snow- 
ing hard!” cried Edwyna, frisking in from 
the kitchen, where she had been kneeling on 
a chair by old Katie’s table, absorbed in watch- 
ing the cooking of Christmas dainties. 

“Then it is perfect,” said Lois, softly, and 
17 


258 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Betty thought she caught her looking down 
at the sparkling ring on her finger. 

“ Run upstairs and change your dress, 
dearie,” said Betty to Edwyna. ‘‘I’ve put it 
on a chair, and I’ll be there in a minute to 
button you up. Scamper!” 

A moment later there was a loud rap at the 
door. Betty and Lois made a dash to see 
which could get there first. 

A messenger boy thrust a long paper box 
into Betty’s hands. 

“What is it?” cried Lois, for the air was 
full of Christmas surprises. Edwyna came 
down the stairs full tilt, buttoning her little 
dress on the way, to see what had come, for 
the old brass knocker to-day had the sound 
of Christmas bells to the wee maid. 

“ It ’s for you, mother, darling 1 ” And Betty, 
all eagerness, began to help untie the cord. 

“Oh! oh!” breathed Betty and Lois, 
while Edwyna eagerly thrust her head in 
between them for a closer look, as the cover 
came off. 

There lay twenty-four American Beauty 
roses, most glorious ones. On them was 
Mr. Minturne’s card. 


CHRISTMAS EVE 


259 


is indeed extremely kind of Mr. Min- 
turne/’ said Mrs. Baird, holding them out 
admiringly at arm’s length. 

“You must wear one, Mrs. Baird,” and 
Lois untwined one from the others. 

“Oh, I couldn’t!” exclaimed Mrs. Baird, 
blushing like a girl. “I — ” 

The two girls would not listen, but placed a 
long-stemmed beauty in the folds of her soft 
black net gown. 

“Father, look, isn’t mother beautiful!” 
Betty called, as soon as Doctor Baird appeared 
on the landing. 

“Your mother has always been beautiful,” 
he replied, as he came down quickly and 
kissed her. 

Barely had they exclaimed in sufficient 
honor of the flowers when again the thunder 
of the old knocker started Edwyna on her best- 
loved task as doorkeeper of “ Boxwood.” 

“It ’s for me, it’s for me !” she cried, danc- 
ing around wildly. Then she ran over to the 
sofa and tore open a small box. 

“Oh!” 

If eyes as big as saucers, and rounding lips 
from which flowed a stream of “Oh’s!” and 


26 o BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


frantic bouncing on the hardy sofa showed joy, 
then Edwyna was the happiest little girl in 
all Hobart. In a white box, on which was 
Tiffany’s magic name, reposed, in snowy 
cotton, the golden coils of a beautiful neck- 
lace, with a card expressing Jack’s love and 
best wishes ! 

“You lucky little cousin, let me put it on 
you ! ” Betty clasped it round the pretty neck. 
“There! Edwyna, it’s perfect! Stand off, 
and let me see how it looks on this lace yoke.” 

Again and again the knocker rang out. Ed- 
wyna had to finish her toilet downstairs, for 
things were growing too exciting to leave, and 
at each knock she made a dash for the door. 

But the climax came when a book was left 
for the Doctor from Mr. Minturne. It was 
a rare edition of one of his favorite Latin 
authors, which he had expressed a desire to 
see. He could hardly lay down the quaint 
little volume long enough to eat his dinner. 
His comments were unvaried; they all rang 
on its beauty and his surprise. 

“He should not have done it. I merely 
said I should like to see it when he told me he 
had recently bought it at an auction in London. 


CHRISTMAS EVE 


261 


I cannot imagine why he has given me such a 
handsome gift. True, we had a long talk over 
our favorite authors, that day he spent with 
us. He’s a fine, cultivated gentleman, well 
grounded in the classics. Yet I don’t under- 
stand — ” 

Then the Doctor would pat the precious 
book and meditate over its contents. Betty, 
however, was a little disconcerted at first, but 
she decided that Mr. Minturne felt as she 
would in his place, that a man like her father, 
a true bibliophile, should possess this treasure, 
rather than one who had it by the accident 
of wealth and a whim of culture. If Betty 
detected any sophistry in her reasoning, she 
wisely allowed it to allay her questioning. 

“Oh, daddy darling, this is Christmas Eve, 
and that explains everything. On such a day 
surprises are all the more surprising, and 
nothing must be too surprising, and Christmas 
all the more Christmasy, and Christmas all 
the more surprising, and surprises all the 
more Christmasy, and — ” 

“Oh, oh!” laughed Lois, as Betty took a 
long breath before proceeding. “ ‘ This is the 
cow with the crumpled horn, that toss’d the 


262 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

dog, that worried the cat, that kill’d the rat, 
that ate the malt, that lay in the house that 
Jack built! 

Betty threw her arms around her father 
and snuggled close to him on the sofa, peep- 
ing over his arm to look at the Christmas 
gift. 

To Lois there had come a different reason 
for Mr. Minturne’s splendid gift. She be- 
lieved that Betty’s airy, laughing account of 
the fire at Minturne Manor, and of her own 
share in it, had been inadequate, and that her 
Betty Baird was a heroine. When pressed, 
Betty had only made light of her part in the 
affair, and Lois did not feel at liberty to ask 
Mr. Minturne. So when this costly book 
came for Doctor Baird, Lois thought: “Now 
this proves it. He knew he could not offer 
her a present that would show his apprecia- 
tion, but to her father and mother he could. 
And besides, he wants Bet to be happy and 
takes the best way.” 

Mrs. Baird, too, had her theory, and it 
seemed to be a disquieting one, as with ques- 
tioning eyes she looked time and again at 
Betty when she would not notice. 


CHRISTMAS EVE 


263 

Another knock at the door. Again for 
Edwyna. From Mr. Minturne had come a 
great box of the very finest, richest, most 
delicious bonbons a little girl could eat, and 
with it another small box, in which were 
tucked two books, one for Betty and one for 
Lois. 

Jack Brooks came soon after dinner, and 
before long, with a great deal of Christmas 
mystery and expressive pantomime, he led 
Betty and Lois away from Dunny and Min- 
turne, who had come with him, and took 
them into the book-room. Minturne and 
Dunny insisted on going with them, but Jack 
shut the door in their faces, and immediately 
drew from his pocket a pair of handsome gold- 
rimmed spectacles. 

“Young friends,” he began, with an attempt 
at great propriety, “I’ve never given a lady 
anything but ‘flowers, books, and sweetmeats.’ 
I ’ve kept strictly to the most approved formula. 
But now I intend to break loose and give Miss 
Jane this pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. Will 
she object?” 

“Miss Jane won’t bother over convention- 
alities, Jack,” said Betty, laughing, “but she 


264 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

might over the expense you went to. You 
did n’t get them from a bargain counter, did 
you ? For then she would be immensely 
tickled.” 

“Caesar’s ghost! A Christmas gift from a 
bargain counter 1 That would make the holly 
turn pale and the Christmas candles blush.” 

Laughing, they burst out of the room, and 
Jack made his presentation speech. 

“Ach, I dunno w’ether I’m afoot or horse- 
back!” Miss Jane exclaimed. She adjusted 
them carefully on her nose and peered through 
them, trying them on everybody and everything 
within sight, and greatly delighted to find her 
vision as keen as of old. 

Much to Betty’s surprise, she expressed no 
scruples at their cost. Perhaps it was the glam- 
our of the day ; or it may have been a growing 
insight into the fact that there were people in 
the world who did not have to count the pen- 
nies as pitifully as she had in the Weston days. 
Even her own thrift was, in Betty’s words, 
on the highroad to ruin, for her sister’s Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch tea-room was paying well, and 
Miss Jane was filling missionary barrels for 
the far West to her heart’s content. 


CHRISTMAS EVE 265 

Minturne now stepped forward, holding out 
a small rosewood box. 

‘‘Miss Jane, you doctored me so splendidly, 
at the time of my late shipwreck, that I felt 
impelled to give you this medicine chest, 
which I hope will serve well the skill which 
you so generously bestowed on me.” 

“Huh! That wasn’t nuthin’. But thank 
you jes’ the same. This ’ll come in jes’ as 
handy!” 

Later Miss Jane made frames of pine cones 
for the handsome Christmas cards that came 
with the young men’s presents, and hung 
them in a prominent place above her bureau. 
The girls never went into her room without 
teasing her about her “conquests,” and the 
maiden lady took evident pride in the fact 
that at sixty she had her loyal boy friends. 

Every one was remembered by everybody, 
and old Katie, out in the kitchen, had her side 
table piled high with useful and ornamental 
presents, and the sight was so inspiring that 
she was heard singing her favorite hymns the 
livelong evening. 

The evening was passed quietly around the 
fire, for those who had been on the historical 


266 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


ride to New York were tired. Stories were told, 
ancient carols sung, chestnuts and apples 
roasted, blind man’s buff played; and after 
Edwyna had gone to bed early, “so Christmas 
would come sooner,” they all popped and 
strung corn for garlanding her Christmas- 
tree. Then all worked together to decorate 
the tree, each outvying the other in the effort 
to express their gratitude to the little one for 
giving them another taste of real Christmas, 
childhood’s Christmas. It was pronounced 
a great success, and all promised to drop in 
the next day to see Edwyna’s joy. 

“I think. Miss Betty,” said Minturne, in a 
low tone, “I really must run over to-morrow, 
while my grandparents are taking their long 
afternoon nap, to see Edwyna dancing round 
her tree. And I’ll bring an owl I have, to 
put on the tree to complete her Minerva’s 
outfit.” 


XXIV 

MISS snell’s visit 
FEW days after Christmas Lois re- 



ceived word from her father that he 


would soon be in New York to take 
her with him to their home in Maryland, a 
charming, hospitable old place in the days 
before Mrs. Byrd’s early death, but now de- 
serted save for a kinswoman, Mrs. Chilton, 
and a few servants. Mr. Byrd’s health and 
business interests had required frequent and 
prolonged trips to Europe ; during these, Lois 
had stayed with Betty. 

Fortunately, after Lois left, Betty had her 
work at the Studio to occupy her, and things 
there went along more tranquilly than might 
have been expected after the stormy begin- 
nings of the partnership. Since the success 
of Mrs. LeLeche’s house, for which she had 
given Betty the credit. Miss Snell had depended 
more and more on her judgment. Betty had 


268 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


the quiet enthusiasm that counts in the long 
run, a staying power that brings success before 
it comes to the heavy plodder or the volatile 
and gushing. The Studio was paying, and 
when the swiftly recurring interest days came, 
they were met with a calmness that had not 
been the case in other years. 

One Saturday morning in April, when Betty 
reached the Studio, she learned that Miss 
Snell was ill and could not be there that day. 
She looked after the matters that needed im- 
mediate attention, then took a car to call on 
her before luncheon. She found Miss Snell in 
a boarding-house, sitting dejectedly in a dreary 
back room. Betty felt a shock to see her in 
such surroundings. As she had never been 
asked to call, she had not been there, and had 
always pictured her in a comfortable home. 

‘‘My nerves have gone all to pieces,” Miss 
Snell said, as she motioned Betty to sit down. 
“I need rest, but I don’t see how in the world 
I can get it. The noise of the city is driving 
me nearly crazy.” 

“It is noisy here,” agreed Betty, hardly 
knowing what to say, as an elevated train 
thundered along a short distance away. 


MISS SNELL’S VISIT 269 

^‘Things at the Studio must be upside- 
down/’ Miss Snell said fretfully. 

“Now, Miss Snell,” said Betty, comfortingly, 
“don’t you worry about things at the Studio. 
Everything is going along there like clock- 
work, just as well as if you were there your- 
self. They are all working on the plans 
you laid out for them yesterday, and there’s 
plenty to keep them busy for to-day, so don’t 
give the Studio another thought, but try to 
rest.” 

“Rest!” exclaimed Miss Snell, peevishly. 
“Oh, yes, that’s easy enough to say. How 
can I rest in this place? I need quiet. But 
where in the world to go for it I don’t 
know.” 

Betty felt a great pity for the poor woman. 
She knew that she had undertaken a work 
that was beyond her, and that was surely 
breaking her down. She wished she could do 
something to help her. An idea came to her, 
and, after a few minutes’ desultory conversa- 
tion, she arose. 

“It is nearing my father’s luncheon time. 
Miss Snell,” she explained, “and I want to 
talk with him about some things before he 


2/0 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

goes back to Hobart this evening, so I’ll run 
away now and stop in again this afternoon to 
see you before I leave.” 

“ Well, good-bye. I hope I ’ll be well enough 
on Monday to come to the Studio. If I ’m 
not there you ’d better come here, and I ’ll 
give you the orders for the day,” answered 
Miss Snell, leaning back wearily on her couch 
and closing her eyes. 

Betty hurried down-town, to Mrs. Gomp’s 
Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant, where she 
took luncheon with her father regularly every 
day at one o’clock. She went into the spotless 
room, and found him sitting in front of the 
open fire, while the three Dutch women 
bustled around in hospitable preparations, 
their prosperity making their smile even 
broader and kinder than of yore. 

“Father,” exclaimed Betty, as she dropped 
into a chair at his side, “ Miss Snell is at home, 
sick. She needs a few days’ rest in some 
quiet place. Could n’t we take her home with 
us to-day and keep her over Sunday ? I think 
it would do her worlds of good. We can tele- 
phone to mother and ask her if she is willing. 
But you know, father, that she will be more 


MISS SNELL’S VISIT 


271 

than willing, and with dear mother’s care and 
old Katie’s good things to eat, I am sure Miss 
Snell would be a different woman in a short 
time.” 

Doctor Baird turned to Betty, smiling 
quizzically. 

“So you have forgotton, Elizabeth, how she 
treated you when you were first associated 
with her?” 

“No, indeed, father !” laughed Betty. “Of 
course I have n’t forgotten ; but I take my 
own times for remembering, and this is n’t 
one of them. She is sick and I — well, she 
needs some one to help her, and I seem to be 
the only one to do it.” 

“I am very glad, daughter, that you have 
this attitude towards her. Yes, we ’ll tele- 
phone to your mother at once, and I am sure 
she will consent.” 

Going to the public telephone in the little 
booth at the side of the room. Dr. Baird was 
soon in communication with his home. He 
came out smiling, as though he had good, 
but not unexpected, news to tell Betty. 

“Your mother says we shall bring Miss 
Snell along, by all means. She, too, thinks it 


272 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

would do her a great deal of good to be out 
there for a while/’ 

“I knew she would say yes!” exclaimed 
Betty, giving her father’s arm an affectionate 
little hug. 

“Dinner’s ready,” said Mrs. Gomp, coming 
up to them, on her way flicking dustless chairs 
with a spotless dust cloth. “Now make out 
your meal,” she admonished hospitably, as 
her daughter put down the steaming potpie. 

The idea of going out on Long Island evi- 
dently pleased Miss Snell. She grew bright 
and animated as they packed her bag and 
rode to the station. The mere^ prospect of a 
change had stimulated her, though after a 
short time the reaction came, and in the train 
she sank back pale and listless. 

Jack happened to be at the station when 
the train pulled in, and while discreetly con- 
cealing his surprise at Betty’s guest, and sup- 
pressing his teasing spirit, he took them all to 
the Baird home in his comfortable car. 

As the day was gusty and cheerless, Mrs. 
Baird had a big fire burning on the hearth in 
the hall. There was an atmosphere of good 
cheer and kindliness in the whole place, and 


MISS SNELUS VISIT 273 

Miss Snell appeared to fall under its influence, 
for with a simplicity of manner that was often 
missing in her approach to strangers, she sank 
gratefully down into the deep sofa before the 
fire, saying, with a smile: 

“Now I can rest, and I wish Monday was 
a year off ! ’’ 

“Make it a week, anyhow. Miss Snell!’’ 
cried Betty. “I promise to keep the Studio 
from walking away 1 ” 

“Oh, thank you,” she began, and then took 
off her hat just as Edwyna came forward. 

“Allow me. Miss Snell, to carry your hat 
upstairs,” Edwyna said, with an aplomb that 
made Betty long for Lois to enjoy it with her. 

“Thank you, little girl. I wish you would 
carry my things up for me. I feel it ’s quite 
beyond me to climb upstairs. Then run and 
bring me a glass of water.” 

Edwyna drew herself up proudly at the off- 
hand and peremptory order to bring a glass 
of water, but Mrs. Baird interrupted. 

“Wouldn’t you rather have a cup of tea. 
Miss Snell ? The cook is brewing some. It 
will be ready in a moment.” 

“Oh, thank you, tea will do very well.” 

18 


274 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Then she added : ‘‘ Little girl, you need n’t 
bring me the glass of water.” 

At these words Betty shot into the book- 
room. Edwyna surveyed Miss Snell darkly, 
yet with curiosity. So far her lot had been 
thrown among unpretentious, courteous people, 
and now she was divided between anger and 
wonder at what kind of woman this was. 

Katie brought in the tea, and Betty reap- 
peared, though she could not trust herself to 
look at her cousin. She began her duties as a 
hostess at once, pouring Miss Snell’s tea, and 
trying in every way to make her feel at home. 

Though the beginning of Miss Snell’s visit 
was not especially promising, the next day and 
those that followed were, on the whole, satis- 
factory. Each morning, before leaving for 
the city, Betty saw that Miss Snell had her 
breakfast in her own room, and on her return 
she always took her out for a ride in the little 
basket phaeton, through the pleasant roads 
that were beginning tentatively to put out 
spring odors and colors. 

Miss Snell’s temper was uncertain, and 
while the bracing air and charming scenes 
soothed and quieted her, she was still prickly 


MISS SNELL’S VISIT 


275 

and difficult to get on with. Here, as in the 
Studio, Betty never knew whether she was 
saying or doing the thing that would appease 
or would ruffle. 

“It ’s funny, mother,” she said, on returning 
home, after taking Miss Snell to the station at 
the end of the week’s visit, “but I have an 
entirely different feeling for Miss Snell since 
she ’s been here. There must be some kind 
of natural religion in hospitality — and I ’m 
converted! Yes,” she added, “somehow I 
understand her, at least for the minute, and 
maybe I won’t forget when we begin to tussle 
in the Studio.” 

Though Betty’s smile was whimsical and 
her words lively, in order to hide her feelings, 
yet the sick, lonely, peevish woman had really 
found a way into her big heart, and Betty 
would always see her in a different light. 


XXV 

THIS WAY FOR MARYLAND! 

‘‘fTT^HIS time to-morrow we’ll be in 
I Maryland ! ” rejoiced Edwyna, spin- 
ning dizzily on her tiptoes around 
the room. “Then there ’ll be the next day, 
then the next day, then the day after that 
Lois ’ll be married ! ” she ended, with cumu- 
lative days and fervor. 

Betty, busily packing, did not answer. 

“How many are going with us to-morrow ?” 

Betty straightened up and glanced signifi- 
cantly at the little pile of clothes Edwyna had 
dropped on the bed while she indulged in her 
jubilation. 

“Your Aunt Helen, your Cousin Betty, and 
yourself if this trunk is packed. If not — ” 
Betty looked unutterable things. 

Edwyna stopped abruptly and hurriedly 
dumped the things on the floor beside the 
trunk and ran to the bureau for more. 


THIS WAY FOR MARYLAND! 277 

‘‘And Mrs. Brooks and Jack, and the Kings, 
maybe Craig, and of course Judge Lane and 
Mrs. Lane,” Betty added absently, looking 
around. 

“Not Mr. Minturne ? I like Mr. Minturne. 
He always brings me candy.” 

“Oh, yes, Mr. Minturne, of course,” Betty 
said hastily, and bent down into the trunk. 

“Poor Uncle William can’t go,” sighed 
Edwyna, sitting on the edge of the bed, as 
though her sympathy might take the place 
of good works. 

“Come, more things. Lazybones.” 

Edwyna went again to the bureau, but un- 
luckily she looked out of the window and spied 
Dottie, and with the stratagem of a fox and 
the movement of a bird, she had slid down 
the banisters and was out of the front door 
before Betty noticed her absence. 

Towards the evening of a perfect June day 
the wedding party were driven between the 
two tall entrance pillars and up a long grassy 
roadway to Lois’s home. 

It was a wide, rambling structure of mellow 
brick imported from Europe during the colo- 


278 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

nial period, occupying a delightful site in the 
midst of a large plantation. The classic round 
portico of the main building was impressive, 
and the long low wings with dormer windows, 
that ran out on each side, were picturesque 
features, and had evidently been later additions. 
Indeed, the old-world custom of adding to, 
instead of tearing down, had been followed by 
the Byrds, and in consequence their country 
home was not only handsome, but quaint and 
interesting. 

Rows of orange and lemon trees ornamented 
the terrace, while shrubberies, heavily per- 
fumed southern flowers, trellised vines, and 
venerable trees, all had their place on the 
great estate; a fountain in the rear of the 
house plashed in the silent afternoon, and 
pigeons and birds dipped daintily in its cool, 
shallow pool. 

Mr. Byrd, a small, distinguished-looking 
man, in whose keen genial face could be traced 
many of the fine qualities that made his 
daughter so lovable, welcomed them warmly. 
By his side was old Mrs. Chilton, a distant 
kinswoman, who lived at Byrd Hall. 

While the others were resting after their 


THIS WAY FOR MARYLAND! 279 

long journey, Lois carried Betty off to her 
favorite spot in the ancient family graveyard, 
where, under tall sycamores and cedars, in a 
corner by the hedge, she had slung her gay 
red hammock. The few level graves, of not 
later than Revolutionary date, with crumbling 
headstones, were not neglected, but were 
treated much as were the trees that shaded 
them ; for the history of the dust within them 
was only to be found in yellow faded letters 
in the worm-eaten chests in the attic. So no 
sadness or mournful association had ever been 
connected with the little spot in Lois’s mind. 
Perhaps in her light-hearted girlhood the 
pathos of the place lent an additional charm, 
even as the one cypress tree did to the scene. 
Here she had grown in friendship with the 
birds, who loved its shady silences, far from 
the treacherous stones of the piccaninnies 
and the sly attacks of the sleek household 
cats. 

Sitting in the hammock, with their arms 
around each other, the two girls swung gently 
to and fro, talking over the months that had 
passed since they parted, and of the coming 
wedding. 


28 o BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


Betty turned suddenly on Lois. 

“I just found you out, Lois. You Ye an 
angel ! Dunny says so ! ” 

“Well, I ’m glad your eyes have been opened 
at last,” retorted Lois. 

“Ever since you left, five solid months ago, 
I have n’t been able to get a word out of him 
about anybody or anything but you.” 

Lois smiled gayly, without giving the least 
evidence of compunction at being the cause 
of Betty’s limited conversational opportunities. 

“Well, Betty, dear, I should think that Jack, 
Craig, Paul, and this Laurence Minturne 
would have helped you a little to escape from 
your martyrdom.” 

“Oh, they have. But you know I see very 
little of Paul now, and Craig is so busy with 
his studies, while Jack — well, you know he’s 
Dunny’s best friend, and he has n’t helped to 
vary the conversation a great deal.” 

“No? And how about Mr. Minturne? I 
never dreamed you ’d be so secretive, Betty.” 

Betty suddenly stood up and became deeply 
interested in an epitaph on one of the oldest 
headstones and made no reply. 

“ So you ’ve decided not to have any ushers. 


THIS WAY FOR MARYLAND! 281 


Lois?” she said presently, and Lois rose at 
once to the bait, as she hoped. 

“Yes, for I want everything to be as simple 
and natural as possible. The wedding party 
and the friends who are coming from Wash- 
ington and Baltimore will know where to sit, 
in the front pews, and as all the people in this 
neighborhood are employed on our estate 
here, they will just drop in as they do on 
Sundays.” 

“I like your idea of having everything 
simple, and that ’s why I did n"t want to be 
your maid of honor. It would make every- 
thing too elaborate.” 

“You know, Betty, I was baptized and con- 
firmed in this church, and my ancestors before 
me, so I want it characteristic of my home 
life rather than fashionable ; and that ’s the 
reason, too, I want the church decorated with 
daisies instead of American Beauty roses.” 

“Yes, we can all go out to-morrow and pick 
them. That will be so much nicer than having 
a florist furnish them.” 

The next morning Mrs. Chilton was sitting 
on the deep, wide, cool gallery at the rear of the 
house, putting strips of whalebone into sun- 


282 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


bonnets, when Betty came up from the garden, 
her hands full of roses and honeysuckle. 

“ I have had all the sunbonnets in the house 
washed. Some of them are half a century old. 
You can have a pink one or a blue one or a 
white one to pick your daisies in,’’ laughed 
Mrs. Chilton. 

“Aren’t they dear and old-fashioned!” 
Betty exclaimed, perching a pale blue one 
jauntily on her head. It was small and dainty, 
edged with a narrow ruffle. 

“I choose this pink one,” cried Lois, strol- 
ling in with Dunmore, followed by Jack and 
Minturne, whom Betty had left smoking by 
the sundial. 

Dunny placed the pink bonnet on Lois’s 
head as if adjusting a crown of diamonds. 

“There!” he cried proudly. “I defy 
Watteau and Claude Lorrain together to 
match this pastoral scene!” he added, his 
glance taking in Betty and her sunbonnet 
and the wide sweep of a rich, mellow land- 
scape. 

“I want to be in this picture!” cried Mary 
King, stepping through one of the long win- 
dows that opened out on the porch and gayly 


THIS WAY FOR MARYLAND! 283 

seizing on a white bonnet with a little fluted 
pink edging. 

“So do I!’’ And Alexander King topped 
his big tawny head with a brilliant scarlet 
bonnet; but Dunmore snatched it off, pro- 
testing that he would not have his picture 
spoilt. 

“I have to be very careful, for my com- 
plexion is so delicate that I can wear only the 
softest tints,’’ Jack explained, adorning his 
locks first with one, then with another, finally 
selecting a saffron-colored one, as best har- 
monizing with his tanned skin. 

“Come, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time 
to pick the ‘sun-eyed daisies’ before it ’s too 
hot!” cried Mr. Byrd, coming towards them. 
“Where is your mother, Betty?” 

“There she is, down there at the fountain 
with Mrs. Brooks.” 

“Judge Lane is to bring Mrs. Lane in a 
carriage, as she would not be able to walk so 
far. My servants will bring plenty of baskets 
for the flowers. So let us be going.” 

All the women wore sunbonnets, even Mrs. 
Brooks, much to Edwyna’s conventional won- 
der. She thought they were all rather wild 


284 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

and silly, and should be content to wear broad- 
brimmed Parisian sun hats. 

Alexander King was in his element, and he 
and Jack kept the others in a gale of laughter 
with their sparring and repartee, though the 
older ladies at times forgot their errand in 
serious consultations over the details of the 
wedding. 

Without a qualm, Lois and Dunmore left 
their plans in the loving hands of their friends, 
and gave themselves up to the glory of the day 
and the realization of the momentous fact that 
they were gathering flowers to decorate the 
church for their own wedding! They were 
often silent and thoughtful, but were ready to 
join in any merry nonsense. 

After luncheon they all sat on the marble 
steps and made ropes of daisies, which they car- 
ried to the church and twined around the dark 
old pillars. They fastened great loose bunches 
of daisies to the pew doors, and banked them 
in the deeply cased windows, where they sprang 
up elastically, as if in their own fields. 

And then they left the church, all beautiful 
and fair for to-morrow. 


XXVI 

THE GYPSIES 

I CAN’T stand it!” said Betty to herself, 
half aloud. She sprang up from the 
chair by the window where she had 
been sitting since coming home from the 
church. Her mother, Lois, and Mrs. Lane 
were talking quietly in the next room, and 
overseeing Aunt Harriet, the old family nurse, 
who was packing Lois’s trunks. 

Betty tiptoed across the hall, past the bil- 
liard-room where the men were trying to 
while away the remainder of the afternoon 
with desultory games, down the low steps, and 
ran to the open door. There she found Ed- 
wyna, with My Nerva and the owl lying in her 
relaxed arms, dozing elegantly though unmis- 
takably in the wicker chair Lois had brought 
down from the attic. It had been Lois’s own 
little chair — and now Lois was to be married 
to-morrow ! 


286 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


Betty stooped over and kissed Edwyna 
gently. 

“Poor little thing, she is taking her after- 
noon nap,” she thought. “Edwyna!” she 
whispered. 

Edwyna was wide awake in a second. 

“What is it. Cousin Betty ?” she asked, put- 
ting her arms lovingly around Betty’s neck 
and drawing her face down to kiss her. 
She was never too sleepy or too tired or too 
elegant to brighten into her own sweet natural 
little self when Cousin Betty came near. 

“Don’t speak loud, for I want to steal away 
without any one knowing, and I want you to 
go with me.” 

“May I take My Nerva? She’d be lonely 
in this strange place.” 

“Yes, do. We’ll get the pony and drive 
and drive and drive!” 

“Why, Cousin Betty!” exclaimed Edwyna, 
wonderingly. She thought she detected a sob 
in Betty’s voice. 

“Hush! Come this way.” 

With the help of a little darky, they hitched 
up the pony to the low-swung basket phaeton, 
and were soon travelling leisurely through the 


THE GYPSIES 


287 

tree-arched roads, and over the gentle hills 
and picturesque stone bridges of the Byrd 
estate. 

Silently they drove along, Betty thinking, 
in spite of herself, of the separation coming 
the next day, though there was a prescience of 
happiness in the very air, joy in the songs of 
the birds, and fragrance everywhere. 

Now and then Edwyna looked at her 
cousin, but she understood that she wished 
to be silent, so she could only admire the 
yellow roses in her belt and touch them lightly 
to draw Betty’s attention. 

“I ’ve come out to be miserable, Edwyna,” 
Betty said, all at once, brushing away a tear, 
but smiling too. “ I came out to complain and 
to give myself up to unmitigated unhappiness.” 

“You ’ve known Lois a great, great many 
years, have n’t you. Cousin Betty ? ” asked 
Edwyna, in a consolatory voice, trying to 
carry on the flagging conversation. 

“Oh, not more than five centuries, Edwyna, 
dear!” smiled Betty. “I was so happy when 
she came to ‘ The Pines ’ that day, to be my 
roommate. I gave her half the hooks in the 
closet, but she had so many dresses that she 


288 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 


needed more, and I gave her more, as I did n’t 
need all of my half, but she made me feel rich 
with my made-over dress. I knew better, but 
I pretended with her, and we were perfectly 
happy. But it’s all over now!” 

Edwyna began to cry. 

“What in the world are you crying for, 
Edwyna? Lois isn’t going to die!” 

“But you cried. Cousin Betty,” said Ed- 
wyna, defensively. 

“Yes, but that’s different. I’m growing 
maudlin with age,” she laughed. “ I ’ll soon 
take to snuff, like old Aunt Harriet. Now 
we’ll go home by a beautiful little stream.” 

She turned the pony and began to sing: 

“ ‘ Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way. 

And merrily hent the stile-a : 

A merry heart goes all the day. 

Your sad tires in a mile-a.’ ” 

They passed a low embankment, covered 
with violet petunias, white candytuft, and dwarf 
sunflowers, which enclosed a deserted house. 

“That ’s a quaint, ramshackle place,” said 
Betty, examining it with interest. As she 
turned forward again, she was startled to find 
a gypsy encampment by the brook. 


THE GYPSIES 


289 

Four or five white tents stood in the glen, 
and a bevy of laughing, quarrelling children 
played by the stream; their mothers, dressed 
in black, but with yellow or pigeon-blood red 
aprons and neckerchiefs, were preparing supper 
over little open fires on the greensward. Back 
of the tents were several large wagons, and be- 
yond, in the open meadow, a number of well- 
conditioned horses roamed at will and cropped 
the sweet grass. 

Betty’s first impulse was to turn and fly. 
She had childish memories of gypsies stealing 
children, and she instinctively took Edwyna 
in one arm. The road, however, was too nar- 
row to turn there, and she had to go on. A 
facetious saying of her father’s flashed into her 
mind, that it was best to propitiate the evil 
spirits because the good ones would n’t hurt you. 
She determined to test its truth. She bowed 
pleasantly to the gypsies and was driving by, 
when a buxom young woman came up to them. 

‘‘Have your fortune told, lady?” she asked. 

“No, thank you, not to-day,” Betty an- 
swered, driving on. 

The girl, however, was by the side of the 
phaeton, looking at her with merry black eyes. 

^9 


290 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Her black hair was plaited down her back and 
ornamented by a high amber comb, and big 
gold hoops hung from her ears. In spite of 
her barbaric dress and the cunning expression 
of her eyes, there was something almost noble 
in her presence. She laughed easily and 
heartily, apparently from the exuberance of 
healthy spirits, showing her strong white 
teeth; her sun-browned cheeks grew red, 
and altogether she presented a splendid pic- 
ture. Several small children, shy but good- 
natured, clung to her dress, and from their 
stronghold eyed the strangers boldly. 

‘‘Come, let me cross your palm with silver,’’ 
the gypsy said cajolingly. 

“If I must,” sighed Betty, smiling, and 
handing down a twenty-five cent piece. 

“I see two young men,” the gypsy began, 
in a sing-song voice. 

“One is dark and one is fair; both love me, 
and one is jealous,” finished Betty, amused at 
the stereotyped prophecy. She had really ex- 
pected more originality from this handsome 
creature. 

The prophetess threw a mischievous smile at 
Betty, then grew sternly solemn. 


THE GYPSIES 


291 


“I see but one man. He stands alone. He 
is tall, handsome, neither dark nor fair. He 
loves you. He has a grand home — 

“Why not a castle?’’ interrupted Betty, 
knowing the gypsy love of foretelling untold 
material grandeur. “It might just as well be 
a castle, and would be more romantic.” 

“It is a castle,” the gypsy maid assured her. 
“That ’s a grand home, surely.” 

“Good!” Betty turned to Edwyna. “It’s 
the Baird Castle.” 

“There ’s no use in my trying, if you don’t 
believe in my second sight,” said the girl, 
offended by Betty’s unconcealed incredulity, 
or at least professing to be. 

“Now, how could I believe in it?” asked 
Betty, yet smiling in a friendly way. 

“I see a castle; I see it,” reasserted the girl, 
stubbornly. 

“So do I,” said Betty, laughing. “Thank 
you for your good wishes. Now we must go. 
Here are some pennies for the children,” and 
she scattered a handful on the road and 
laughed to see them scramble for them. 

As Betty leaned over to give one to a wee 
tot who had not been able to compete with his 


292 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

big, hardy elders, Mr. Minturne on horseback 
came dashing around the bend in the road. 
He pulled up his horse suddenly. 

Tall, straight, with a face not easily for- 
gotten because of its strength and high breed- 
ing; proud, yet not vain, though bearing 
unconsciously in his carriage the ancestral 
marks of those who had been proud of their 
place in the world and of their power and in- 
fluence, he was a man of notable distinction. 

In the pony phaeton sat Betty, winsome and 
merry, dressed in white, her golden-brown 
head close to the blue-black mane of the young 
gypsy, as she bent over to give out her pennies ; 
Edwyna, awe-struck, her doll hugged to her 
breast, clinging to Betty ; the tall commanding 
figure of the young gypsy woman, with her 
blood-red shawl, great hoop earrings, orange 
petticoat, and general barbaric splendor; the 
gypsy encampment, the old women in strange 
attire, holding rollicking children ; on the 
banks of the stream two old men fishing; 
over all, the warm balmy air, the sound of the 
brook, and the leafy archway of trees throwing 
shadows on the yellow road. 

“Why, Mr. Minturne!” exclaimed Betty, 


THE GYPSIES 


293 


looking up suddenly from her gift making. 
Her face grew bright with welcome. Then 
she tried to hide its warmth by a studied 
indifference. 

The gypsy gazed intently at the man, then 
back at Betty. A smile crept into her dark 
eyes. 

“Arcadia!’’ Minturne cried, vaulting off 
his horse. 

Betty caught the significant expression in 
the gypsy’s eyes and her teasing yet good- 
natured smile. 

“ It ’s time to go home,” she said, a little 
formally. She nodded coolly to the gypsy, but 
laughed as the babies, tumbling on the soft 
grass, waved frantic farewells with their 
chubby hands. She threw them kisses and 
more pennies as she turned away, but kept 
her eyes determinedly from meeting those of 
the gypsy maid. 

As Betty and Edwyna drove up to the por- 
tico, with Minturne riding beside them on the 
thoroughbred, they found Jack standing alone 
by one of the pillars, smoking his companion- 
able pipe. He gave them a quick, searching 
glance. He saw that something out of the 


294 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

ordinary had happened. He could see that 
Betty was greatly disturbed, though he could 
not discern that she was both disturbed and 
frightened by Minturne’s look, the hint in the 
gypsy’s eyes, and at her own warmth of 
welcome. She felt that the world had had a 
new twist since she started out to forget the 
one Lois’s coming marriage had given it. 

‘‘The world ’s all right, Betty,” said Jack, 
as she passed him with a troubled counte- 
nance, scarcely returning his cheery greeting. 

“I didn’t expect that from you. Jack 
Brooks,” she replied, much to his mystification. 

They were much alike in temperament, and 
had been true comrades, too well satisfied with 
the present to anticipate the future unneces- 
sarily. It was the time for hearty friendship, 
and both had a gift amounting to talent for 
loyal true friendships, that nothing could 
change and nothing weaken. While this was 
a bond between them it was at the same time 
a stumbling-block to the hopes the friends of 
both had for them. 

With unusual keenness Jack had pene- 
trated Minturne’s secret. He was not sur- 
prised. Naturally every one would love Betty. 


THE GYPSIES 


295 

As for jealousy, well, Jack was not in the least 
a dog in the manger ; besides, he felt he could 
well afford to be generous, as he knew — or 
thought he knew — that Betty’s mind and 
heart were not concerned in the slightest with 
love and marriage. He believed that his good 
comrade, Betty, was, like himself, happy in 
the gay present, satisfied and contented with 
conditions as they were. However, he knew 
that Minturne was a man of purpose, of quick 
and determined action, a man who had ac- 
complished much for his years, and who would 
not dally long in his wooing. 

Then, perhaps for the first time in his happy, 
care-free twenty-one years. Jack felt his heart 
grow heavy. No one had ever meant as much 
to him as Betty, and now Betty — He 
emptied his pipe, pounding it meditatively 
against the palm of his left hand, and stalked 
frowningly into the house to dress for dinner, 
and incidentally to have a look at that man 
Minturne ! 

Lois and Betty had planned to devote a 
part of this last evening to minstrelsy. Since 
their early girlhood, when The Order of The 
Cup was founded, they had lost none of their 


296 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

love for the old troubadours and the songs of 
the knightly era. To-night they would have 
the songs of the South, led by some of the 
ancient retainers of the Byrd family. 

A splendid feature of the house was a curv- 
ing balcony, with beautiful balustrade, which 
connected the two stairways on the level of 
the second floor. This the girls had named 
The Minstrel Gallery, and here Lois had 
called together the musicians of the planta- 
tion, who, in honor of the occasion, had 
achieved something not unlike the motley or 
harlequin costumes of old. 

There was white-haired Pompey, with his 
beloved guitar, who never failed to tell visitors 
that he had been one of Washington’s body 
servants, though he invariably forgot to tell 
them that he was but eighty years of age; 
J ulius Caesar, his frivolous son of nearly sixty, 
with his yellow fiddle plentifully covered with 
rosin dust; and George Washington Jackson, 
the patriarch of them all, with his tinkling 
banjo. Swaying back and forth, as though in 
ecstasy, and keeping time by thunderous beats 
of their huge feet, the picturesque trio led the 
company in song. 


THE GYPSIES 


297 

Lois and Dunny stood a moment alone in 
the shadowy hall, and tears came to Lois’s 
eyes as she thought of those days gone forever, 
when her mother, whom she could not remem- 
ber, and her father had lived and loved in 
this very home. 

‘‘Lois!” pleaded Dunny. 

“ It ’s the past, Dunny. It seems to flit back 
with the candle light and the rhythm of the 
music. My mother — ” But Lois could not 
continue. 

“I know, sweetheart,” comforted Dunny. 
“But I ’ll try to make a happy present and 
future for you, though I — ” 

“Oh, Dunny, I’m happy, happy, happy!” 

Before Dunny could answer with more than 
a pressure of the hand. Jack and Minturne 
came down the stairs together. They did n’t 
seem to have much to say to each other. 
Looking around, Lois saw Mrs. Baird coming 
down the other stairway, alone. 

“Why, where ’s Betty?” Lois exclaimed, 
going forward to meet her. 

“Edwyna ’s determined to be resplendent 
to-night, and Betty is helping her to dress. It 
seems to be difficult to suit her fastidious taste.” 


298 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

There was a rustle and the sound of quick 
steps, and they all turned to see Betty, clasping 
Edwyna by the hand, coming down the stair- 
way, holding up the train of her filmy white 
gown. Edwyna fluttered by her side in pink. 

Minturne was at the foot of the steps in an 
instant, holding out a hand to Edwyna and 
jumping her down the last two steps, and ask- 
ing Betty for the first waltz. Jack caught 
Dunny's eye, and the two friends walked away 
and talked for a moment on the portico, while 
Betty and Minturne joined Mrs. Baird and 
Lois. 

“He ’s in dead earnest,” commented Jack. 

“And Betty?” 

“Who knows!” 

“If it isn’t you. Jack, I hope it will be 
Minturne. He ’s a man all through. And I ’m 
afraid, old fellow, if I can judge from what 
Lois says, that it will be Minturne.” 

“Well, Dunny, you know she and I have 
been the best friends in the world, but without 
any sentimentality. Yet it will go kind of 
hard.” 


XXVII 

LOIs’s WEDDING 

I N carriages, on foot through the shady 
paths, and on horseback, even in the pil- 
lion fashion of old, came the guests from 
the surrounding country to Lois’s wedding. 

The little ancient cruciform church peeped 
out through its mantle of dark English ivy at 
the golden sunlit world. Its silent interior 
was dim and cool, yet glowed here and there 
with bits of color from the rich stained glass, 
the golden cross and candlesticks, and the 
richly embroidered altar-cloth. 

The sacristan, an old family friend, had 
seen to it that the venerable church had been 
swept and dusted until scarcely a mote swam 
in the rays of sunshine that filtered into the 
chancel; and no hand but his had been al- 
lowed to arrange the flowers on the gradine 
and to bank the fragrant white roses and 
palms at the sides of the altar. 


300 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

As the guests entered, they stepped on a 
marble floor that might well have reminded 
them of the lines from George Herbert: 

‘‘ Mark you the floore ? that square & speckled stone 
Which looks so firm and strong, 

Is Patience* 

“ And th* other black and grave, wherewith each one 
Is checker’d all along, 

HumilitieP 

While they were being seated, the vested 
choir, led by a boy soprano with a voice of 
thrilling beauty, sang “Oh, for the Wings of 
a Dove!” 

Lois, leaning on her father’s arm, passed 
down the garlanded aisle, and met Dunmore 
before the altar. As she stood there at his 
side, before the venerable clergyman who had 
baptized her and instructed her for confirma- 
tion, her veil of tulle and old lace falling over 
her simple yet rich satin gown, it seemed to 
Betty that there never could have been a more 
beautiful bride. 

On the return from the church Lois and 
Dunmore alighted from their carriage at the 
entrance gateway, and walked up the shad- 
owed road, between the lines of children 


LOIS’S WEDDING 


301 


whom Lois had known from their infancy. 
They sang their songs of love and good wishes 
and strewed the path of the bride with fresh 
wild flowers and roses, symbolically thornless, 
to the rambling old house that had looked 
down the long avenue at many a brilliant 
wedding-party walking up to its welcoming 
doors. Yes, it had looked down that avenue 
for more than two centuries; and now came 
Lois Byrd ; and of all the brides the old house 
had smiled upon, none had been fairer or more 
beloved. 

The wedding breakfast passed all too 
quickly, and before the guests were aware of 
anything unusual — Betty protested that it 
was magic — Mr. and Mrs. Lane had dis- 
appeared. There were great hurryings to and 
fro, and gay searching parties, but all of no 
avail. The bride and bridegroom had stolen 
away on their wedding journey, leaving the 
rice and the old shoes and all the well-wishes 
on the hands of the gay tricksters. 

Betty and Minturne stood by the fountain, 
watching the doves dip into its water, then 
whisk out, shaking from their iridescent necks 


302 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

and snowy wings the tiny drops that splashed 
merrily back again. After Lois’s departure 
Betty had hurried to this pleasant spot to be 
alone, and Minturne, walking through the 
many interwinding paths, had been led there 
by a glimpse of Betty’s white gown as she ran 
down the steps to the flower garden. 

They did not talk much, but musingly 
watched the dainty birds, turning easily from 
them to speak of the fragrance of the jessamine 
near by, of the perfect day with its cloudless 
sky, of the bride and bridegroom and the 
church, of the doves fluttering in mid-air, whose 
wings seemed to Betty’s fancy like the petals 
of the water-lilies that swam in the pool. 

‘‘ By the way. Miss Betty, your Scottish cas- 
tle is to be sold,” Minturne remarked, with 
an airy ease and a spontaneity that his eyes 
somehow belied. 

‘‘Oh!” cried Betty, impulsively, straight- 
ening up with a movement of surprise. “Then 
my poor eagles will be wanderers again!” 

“It ’s too bad !” deplored Minturne. 

“‘Bad!’” repeated Betty. “Isn’t there 
something we can do to prevent those eagles 
being driven from their ‘ immemorial crags ’ ? ” 


LOIS’S WEDDING 


303 


Minturne was silent. 

“How did you learn that it was to be 
sold?” persisted Betty, determined to stick 
to the safe subject of the eagles. 

“I received a letter from a friend who lives 
not far from there. He said the castle was 
about to be offered for sale by the present 
owner. I wrote to him for more information, 
and a day or two ago I received this.” 

Minturne handed her an agent’s list of 
estates for sale. 

Betty took the pamphlet gayly. 

“There is the castle! And there are the 
crags I ” 

“Let me see those ‘immemorial crags,’” 
he demanded laughingly. 

He glanced at the picture as Betty held it 
out to him, but his eyes wandered from it to 
her bright, winsome face. 

“Wouldn’t you think they’d have some 
eagles flying around?” she queried, studying 
the view intently, perhaps too intently to be 
altogether convincing. 

“Maybe they don’t feel at liberty to throw 
in the eagles, since they belong only to the 
Bairds,” he suggested, smiling. 


304 BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

“Those poor eagles! ‘After a fidelity of 
five centuries/’’ she quoted from the wordy 
legend, “ to be turned out into a cold and un- 
friendly world at a moment’s notice 1 I wonder 
where they will go.” 

“Perhaps they ’ll come to America.” 

“ I suppose we could n’t call on the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to 
take this in hand, could we?” she suggested. 

Minturne made no reply. 

As they had seemed apart from the rest of 
the world when riding back to the manor on 
the night of the fire, so it was now, in this 
summer’s day, in this old southern garden. 
The day was warm and still, the air heavy 
with the sweet odors of flowers ; the mazarine- 
blue sky above them, the sun scarcely breaking 
through the trellised roses and jessamines that 
formed a screen at the back of the marble 
seat where they two sat alone by the fountain. 

“ I must talk about the eagles,” Betty found 
herself thinking. She feared she said it aloud. 

“Now, surely,” she began, with heightened 
color, her eyes fastened on the picture as if 
her life depended on it, “you should be able 
• — I mean — oh, why don’t you — Now, here 


LOIS’S WEDDING 


305 

is this castle, beloved by the eagles and right- 
fully theirs, and no one is willing to lift a 
finger to save it for them!” 

Betty glanced up, then turned again to the 
picture, while the color fled from her face. 

Minturne bent close to her. 

“There ’s a way to save the eagles, Betty.” 

Her head went lower, while her cheeks 
crimsoned from his look, his words, and the 
intensity of his low tone. 

Minturne clasped the picture and the hand 
that held it in both of his. 

“Betty, I—” 

“Cousin Betty, it ’s time to get ready for the 
train. Aunt Helen says,” broke in Edwyna’s 
voice. “Why, Cousin Betty, what makes you 
so red?” 

Without replying, Betty sprang to her feet 
and made her way to the house at a pace that 
compelled Edwyna to trot, and even Minturne 
to lengthen his long strides. 

“Were you cross at Mr. Minturne, Cousin 
Betty?” whispered Edwyna, as they hurried 
along ; but Betty only shook her head. 

A week or so later, as Betty was tucking 
Edwyna into bed, she leaned over and kissed 

20 


3o6 BETTY BAIRD^S GOLDEN YEAR 

her good-night. Then she kissed her again, 
and once more began the tucking-in of the 
bedclothes, though there was not a loophole 
left to close. Evidently Betty had something 
on her mind, something to tell little Edwyna 
which she found hard to say. Kneeling by 
the bedside, and burying her cheek in the 
pillow, she answered that unanswered question 
of Edwyna’s, which the child had propounded 
by the fountain in Maryland, by asking another. 

‘‘Edwyna, would you like to have a new 
cousin ? ” 

The little arms flew from under the care- 
fully tucked-in covers. 

“Cousin Betty!” 

She pulled Betty’s head down close, asking, 
in a delighted whisper: 

“Cousin Laurence?” 

Betty sprang up, laughing and blushing 
furiously. 

“Gracious, Edwyna, you’re a witch! How 
dici you guess Yes,” she added, as she 
hurried towards the door, “it was ‘Cousin 
Laurence’ at first sight!” 





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ANNA HAMLIN WEIKEL’S 

BETTY BAIRD SERIES 


BETTY BAIRD 

Illustrated by Ethel Pennewill Brown. i2mo. $1.50. 

A boarding school story, with a charming heroine, delightfully narrated. The book 
is lively and breezy throughout. — Philadelphia Press. 

A true presentment of girl life. — Chicago Evening Post. 

Betty is a heroine so animated and charming that she wins the reader’s affection at 
once. When she enters the boarding school she is shy, old-fashioned, and not quite 
so well-dressed as some of the other girls. It is not long, however, before her 
lovable character wins her many friends, and she becomes one of the most popular 
girls in the school. — Brooklyn Eagle. 

The illustrations, by Ethel Pennewill Brown, are remarkably successful in their 
portrayal of girlish spirit and charm. — New York Times. 

I 

BETTY BAIRD’S VENTURES 

Illustrated by Ethel Pennewill Brown. i2mo. $1.50. 

Will please the girls who liked the piquant and original Betty, when she first 
appeared in the volume bearing her name. — Hartford Times. 

The very spirit of youth is in these entertaining pages. — St. Paul Pioneer 
Press. 

BETTY BAIRD’S GOLDEN YEAR 

Illustrated by Ethel Pennewill Brown. i2mo. Cloth. $1.50. 

In the third and concluding volume of “ The Betty Baird Series,” Betty is shown 
happily at work in her profession, still earnest in her purpose to pay off the 
mortgage, and in the meantime to make her home a centre of useful interests. 


LITTLE, BROWN, COMPANY, Publishers 

254 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 











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